Bloomberg:
- North Korea Attack on South Kills Two, Setting Homes Ablaze. North Korea lobbed artillery shells at a South Korean island near the disputed border between the two countries, killing two soldiers and setting houses ablaze in the worst attack on its neighbor in at least eight months. South Korea returned fire with 80 shells and scrambled fighter jets as President Lee Myung Bak vowed to respond “sternly.” Local television channel YTN showed smoke billowing from Yeonpyeong island off South Korea’s northwest coast and said residents took cover in bomb shelters.
- Euro in 'Exceptionally Serious' Situation Amid Irish Bailout, Merkel Says. German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the euro is in an “exceptionally serious” situation after Ireland became the second European country to need a rescue after Greece. “I don’t want to paint a dramatic picture, but I just want to say that a year ago we couldn’t imagine the debate we had in the spring and the measures we had to take” over Greece, Merkel said in a speech to Germany’s BDA employers’ group in Berlin today. “We are facing an exceptionally serious situation as far as the euro’s situation is concerned.”
- Ireland Said to Need 85 Billion Euros for Rescue. European Union officials estimate that a rescue package for Ireland may amount to about 85 billion euros ($114 billion), according to two officials familiar with the talks. The European Commission cited the figure as a preliminary estimate on a conference call of euro-region finance ministers on Nov. 21, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private. Of the total, 35 billion euros would be earmarked for banks and 50 billion euros to help finance the Irish government. Contagion is spreading through the euro region as Ireland hammers out an aid package with the EU and the International Monetary Fund to rescue its banking system. Spanish bonds tumbled, pushing the extra yield that investors demand to hold its 10-year debt over German bunds to a euro-era record of 236 basis points. Irish bonds also dropped today. “The markets currently have virtually zero confidence that the bailout in Ireland will solve the European crisis,” Charles Diebel and David Page, fixed-income strategists at Lloyds TSB Corporate Markets in London, wrote in a note today. “With markets effectively in a position to dictate policy, the risk is that the credibility crisis shifts to more sizeable EU countries and thereby poses a greater risk to the system as a whole.”
- Corporate Bond Risk Rises in Europe, Credit-Default Swaps Show. Contracts on the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index of 50 companies with mostly high-yield credit ratings climbed 18 basis points to 480, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. at 3 p.m. in London. The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings rose 4 basis points to 107 basis points, JPMorgan prices show. The Markit iTraxx Financial Index linked to the senior debt of 25 banks and insurers increased 12.5 basis points to 152 and the subordinated index rose 23 to 260.5.
- Payrolls Grow as Employers Gain Confidence in Recovery. Payrolls increased in 41 U.S. states in October, led by Texas and New York, indicating the labor market is stabilizing across the world’s largest economy. Employers in Texas added 47,900 jobs last month, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington.
- Japan Consumer Lending Falls by Record. Japan’s consumer loans fell by a record in September because of tougher regulations that took effect in June, the Nikkei newspaper reported. The revision of the money-lending business law cut rates and limited loans to one-third of a borrower’s annual income, according to the Nikkei. Consumer loans at Japan’s 62 moneylenders declined by 47 percent to 263 billion yen ($3.2 billion) in September from a year earlier, according to the website of the Japan Financial Services Association, which didn’t provide a reason for the decrease.
- Obama's Administration Buys One in Four Hybrids as Consumer Market Slumps. President Barack Obama’s administration has bought almost a fourth of the Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Co. hybrid vehicles sold since he took office, accelerating federal purchases as consumer demand wanes. The U.S. General Services Administration, which runs the government fleet, bought at least 14,584 hybrid vehicles in the past two fiscal years, or about 10 percent of 145,473 vehicles the agency purchased in that period, according to sales data obtained by Bloomberg under a Freedom of Information Act request.
- Christie's Job-Approval Rating Survives New Jersey Budget Cuts, Poll Shows. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie still wins approval from almost half of the state’s voters even as he cuts budgets, according to a Fairleigh Dickinson University poll. Christie’s job performance was supported by 49 percent of registered voters surveyed by the university’s PublicMind Poll, compared with 39 percent who disapprove, the school said today.
- Gilead(GILD) Pill Helps Prevent HIV in 'Breakthrough' Study. A daily pill helped protect gay and bisexual men from HIV for the first time in a landmark study. Gilead Sciences Inc.’s Truvada, sold to subdue the AIDS- causing virus in those already infected, cut the risk of contracting HIV by 44 percent, according to findings published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug reduced new infections as much as 73 percent in those who used it most.
- U.S. Existing Home Sales Dropped 2.2% in October: Video.
- 10 Held in 3 Countries in Belgian Terror Probe. Ten suspects were detained in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany following an investigation of a possible terror attack in Belgium by an international group of jihad fighters, prosecutors said. The detainees have Belgian, Dutch, Moroccan and Russian nationalities and will appear before an investigating judge later today, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement. The suspected terror group was predominantly based in the Belgian city of Antwerp, the prosecutors said.
Wall Street Journal:
- Massey(MEE) Energy Moves Close to Sale. Massey Energy Co.'s board on Monday took another step toward a potential sale of the company, setting up a committee to explore offers.
- US Growth Revised Up More Than Expected to 2.5%. The U.S. economy grew faster than previously estimated in the third quarter, government data showed on Tuesday, but still not enough to address stubbornly high unemployment. Gross domestic product growth was revised up to an annualized rate of 2.5 percent from 2.0 percent as exports, and consumer and government spending were stronger than initially thought, the Commerce Department said in its second estimate.
- More Hedge Funds Leave the UK - Now GLG Partners is Going to Tax Haven Switzerland Too. Add GLG Partners to the list of UK-based hedge funds that are exiting the city after it imposed a huge bonus tax on top earners.
- The Feds Are Barking Up The Wrong Tree With These Hedge Fund Raids by Charlie Gasparinon.
- FOMC Minutes: All About Killing The Dollar. It turns out the Fed was not only fully aware QE2 would crush the dollar, but welcomed it.
New York Post:
- High-Frequency, Prop Traders on Bharara's Radar. Computer-driven trading shops and independent proprietary trading firms may be the next to feel the heat from watchdogs aiming to clean up Wall Street, source tell The Post. Federal agents, who have ratcheted up the heat on insider-trading rings linked to hedge funds and investment firms, are also are targeting firms that purport to offer individual investors specialty trading techniques employed by Wall Street powerhouses like Goldman Sachs, these sources said. These firms, which claim to offer market access that typical investors aren't privy to, are being eyed because they may be helping bad actors conduct flash trades that could be tied to insider-trading activity, sources said.
Washington Post:
- Retrained for Green Jobs, But Still Waiting on Work. After losing his way in the old economy, Laurance Anton tried to assure his place in the new one by signing up for green jobs training earlier this year at his local community college. Anton has been out of work since 2008, when his job as a surveyor vanished with Florida's once-sizzling housing market. After a futile search, at age 56 he reluctantly returned to school to learn the kind of job skills the Obama administration is wagering will soon fuel an employment boom: solar installation, sustainable landscape design, recycling and green demolition. Anton said the classes, funded with a $2.9 million federal grant to Ocala's workforce development organization, have taught him a lot. He's learned how to apply Ohm's law, how to solder tiny components on circuit boards and how to disassemble rather than demolish a building. The only problem is that his new skills have not resulted in a single job offer. Officials who run Ocala's green jobs training program say the same is true for three-quarters of their first 100 graduates.
- Business: Barack Obama's Outreach Not Enough. After two years of building frustration, the executives say they won’t be won over by another round of private lunches and photo opportunities at the White House. If President Barack Obama has any hope for a truce with corporate America in time for his 2012 reelection campaign, he needs to drop the name-calling, try to see their point of view better and step up with some specific proposals.
- Body Scanner Makers Doubled Lobbying Cash Over 5 Years. The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance their causes in Washington, government records show. L-3 Communications, which has sold $39.7 million worth of the machines to the federal government, spent $4.3 million trying to influence Congress and federal agencies during the first nine months of this year, up from $2.1 million in 2005, lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics show.
- FBI Raids Send Warning to Hedge Funds. FBI raids on hedge funds were a sign that prosecutors feared evidence in a widening insider trading probe could be destroyed, but the dramatic daytime searches may also have been intended to shake up the secretive hedge fund world, legal experts said. Investigators most likely swooped down on the funds Monday in Connecticut and Massachusetts because they had a major concern that subpoenas for information would not be properly obeyed, lawyers and investigators said. The raids served another purpose: warning the broader financial industry that a serious prosecution effort was underway.
- The Bail-Out: Bad for Ireland and Britain, Good for Eurocrats and Bankers.
- Spanish Central Bank Chief Miguel Ordonez Warns of Contagion Risks. Spanish bond yields jumped on Tuesday, reflecting fears of contagion from the Irish debt crisis, while the central bank warned that the path to recovery would be slow and strewn with risks.
- European Union and International Monetary Fund officials will tell the Greek government to step up the pace of deficit cuts and structural reforms as government efforts slow. EU and IMF officials will spell out changes which must be made by each ministry so that a fourth payment of loans under the 110 billion-euro package is made in February.
Xinhua:
- China and North Korea signed a cooperation agreement on trade and economy in Pyongyang today.
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