Bloomberg:
- Ryan: What Kind of Country Are We Going to Be? (video) Vice Presidential Candidate Paul Ryan speaks at the Vice Presidential Debate.
- Hollande Robbed of Growth Driver as Companies Curb Investments. French companies aren’t investing much at home these days. A no-growth economy had already damped spending when President Francois Hollande’s government late last month unveiled a budget that slaps companies with 10 billion euros ($13.1 billion) of tax increases for next year. Executives are returning the favor by suspending investments. “On investment, the word right now is caution,” Stanislas de Bentzmann, co-chief executive officer of Devoteam SA (DVT), a telecommunications services company based on the outskirts of Paris, said in an interview. “September was a terrible month, growth came to a halt. Now the government is pouring oil on the fire. The tax increases aren’t encouraging for business.”
- China Room to Ease Seen Fading as Inflation Lull Set to End. A U.S. drought that pushed soybean and corn prices to records is adding to the risk of a rebound in inflation in China, where consumer-price gains were probably close to the slowest in two years in September. Inflation was 1.9 percent last month, according to the median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey before a report on Oct. 15. Credit Agricole CIB says the rate may approach 4 percent by year-end and Citigroup Inc. estimates a pace of about 3.5 percent. The prospect of faster price gains in coming months may encourage policy makers to refrain from cutting interest rates for a third time this year, contrasting with reductions in Brazil, South Korea and Australia and adding to the risk economic growth will be the weakest since 1999. Increased grain costs are feeding into pork prices and the government is also battling to prevent a rebound in the housing market. “Inflation will rise in the fourth quarter as pork and other food prices are expected to climb and housing costs are creeping up,” said Dariusz Kowalczyk, senior economist and strategist at Credit Agricole CIB in Hong Kong. “This means there is no room for the central bank to cut interest rates.”
- Copper Traders Most Bearish Since June on Economies: Commodities. Copper traders are the most bearish in four months on mounting concern that demand for industrial metals will weaken as growth slows from China to Europe.
- Japan and China Agree to Hold Talks on Dispute After Noda Call. Japan and China agreed to talks aimed at reducing tensions over a territorial dispute a day after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda warned that without negotiations Asia’s two biggest economies would suffer. Officials from both countries agreed to hold vice- ministerial level discussions at an unspecified date, Japan’s Foreign Ministry said last night. Shinsuke Sugiyama, director- general of the ministry’s Asia-Pacific bureau, met with Chinese counterpart Luo Zhaohui in Tokyo yesterday and began preparations for the talks, according to a statement.
- Japan’s Government Cuts Economic Assessment for Third Month. Japan’s government cut its assessment of the nation’s economy for a third straight month, the longest streak since the 2009 global recession.“The economic recovery is in a weak tone recently due to deceleration of the world economy,” the Cabinet Office said in its monthly report for October released in Tokyo today. The cut in the government’s assessment marks the longest run of downgrades since the five months through February 2009.
- Biden and Ryan Slug It Out, Differences on Display. If Americans wanted to know what a real debate sounds like, they got one Thursday night, courtesy of the two men who are supposed to be taking second billing in the presidential race. Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan provided millions of Americans the kind of slugfest the presidential contenders themselves didn't provide in their first debate. It was potent and lively, and nobody could walk away wondering what the differences were between what the two parties stood for.
- Best Buy(BBY) Plays Web Hardball. Retailer Will Match Online Prices, Shrugs off 'Showrooming'.
- Spain Says Downgrade Won't Affect Plans. Officials Will Still Try to Raise Money on Financial Markets Despite S&P Move That Leaves Rating Close to Junk Status. Spanish officials voiced defiance on Thursday after a credit downgrade left the country's rating close to junk status at two firms, saying the surprise move wouldn't affect their plans to raise money on financial markets. Financial analysts said Wednesday's move by Standard & Poor's Ratings Services is likely to increase pressure on one of the euro zone's most-fragile economies to seek a European Union bailout.
- Green Regs May Make NYers See Red Over Oil Bills. Fuel price shocks that had Californians gasping at record high pump prices over $5 a gallon may next hit heating oil users in New York, where depleted supplies and new green regulations could push bills up sharply this winter.
- US Fiscal Cliff Is 'Major Concern' for World: IMF's Zhu. The U.S. needs to provide more clarity to ease fears about the “fiscal cliff’” of tax hikes and spending cuts that are due to kick in in January, Zhu Min, deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Friday. “It’s very clear that if the whole tax package moves off the table it will immediately bring the U.S. into a recession, which will have a huge negative impact on the whole world,” Zhu told CNBC on the sidelines of the IMF’s semi-annual meetings in Tokyo.
- Trade Deficit - Recession Risks Increase. (graph)
- Fed's "Other Assets" Hit All Time High Of $205 Billion. (graph)
- Goldman's(GS) Cohn On The Fed's One Way Con. (video)
- CNN INSTANT POLL: Paul Ryan Beat Joe Biden In Thursday's VP Debate. An instant poll taken by CNN after Thursday's vice presidential debate found that voters thought Republican candidate Paul Ryan beat Vice President Joe Biden, by a 48-44 margin.
- FOX NEWS' CHRIS WALLACE: I've Never Seen A Candidate As Disrespectful As Joe Biden Was Tonight. (video)
- The List Of Discrepancies In This State Department Account Of The Benghazi Attack Are Outrageous.
- During A Violent Incident At A Greek Theater, An Elected Official Went On An Unimaginably Vile Rant. (video)
- Mitt Romney Has A Gigantic Lead In A New Florida Poll. Mitt Romney has opened up an enormous lead over President Barack Obama in Florida, according to a new Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald/Tampa Bay Times poll. Romney now leads the president by 7 points — 51 percent to 44 percent — in the Sunshine State, his largest lead since a hypothetical Quinnipiac poll conducted in September 2011. It's an 8-point swing for Romney, who trailed Obama by a point last month. Both polls were conducted by Mason Dixon.
Washington Post:
- Ryan presses Biden on Libya. (video) The debate started with foreign policy, a topic absent from the presidential debate last week. Rep. Paul Ryan accused Vice President Biden tonight – and by extension President Obama – of failing to candidly acknowledge the facts surrounding the recent deadly attack on the U.S. diplomatic in Libya. The Sept. 11 strike on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, has exposed the Obama administration in the campaign’s stretch run on an issue (national security) it considers a political strength. The attack, connected to the al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa, was bad enough. But the administration’s changing explanation for what happened that day – a spontaneous protest or a coordinated attack on a thinly protected U.S. mission? – has drawn Republican accusations of a White House cover-up to avoid a politically damaging acknowledgement of a terrorist strike. “It took the president two weeks to acknowledge this was a terrorist attack,” Ryan said. “If we are hit by terrorists we’re going to call it what it is: A terrorist attack.”
NY Times:
Reuters: - Panetta Warns of Dire Threat of Cyberattack on U.S. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta warned Thursday that the United States was facing the possibility of a “cyber-Pearl Harbor” and was increasingly vulnerable to foreign computer hackers who could dismantle the nation’s power grid, transportation system, financial networks and government.
- Permanent fix of U.S. housing to take time: Home Depot(HD) CEO. The U.S. housing market is starting to thaw, but it could be two years before a full-blown recovery takes hold, Home Depot Inc Chief Executive Frank Blake said on Thursday. The world's largest home improvement retailer has seen the benefits of the nascent U.S. housing recovery as professional contractors have started buying more in recent months. "It's starting to recover, but we're a long way away from true recovery," Blake, 63, told Reuters in a wide-ranging interview that touched on his views of the so-called Fiscal Cliff to why he sees the internet as Home Depot's next frontier. The comments came less than a week after two influential Federal Reserve officials blamed the disappointing rebound in U.S. housing for continuing to trip up the country's overall economic recovery. "This housing market's been very, very bad and it's going to take some time to recover," Blake said.
- Amazon(AMZN) CEO confirms Kindle sold "at cost". Amazon Chief Executive Jeff Bezos confirmed on Thursday that the online retailer sells its Kindle e-reader "at cost", with profit coming instead from sales of online content.
- AMD(AMD) warns of revenue drop as PC demand crumbles. Chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices Inc said on Thursday its third-quarter revenue likely fell 10 percent from the previous quarter as a weak global economy and growing preference for tablets slams the PC industry. AMD's pre-announcement is the latest warning about the PC industry. It follows Intel's warning in September that its quarterly revenue would be much lower than expected.
- Summers says payroll tax break should be extended. President Barack Obama's former economic aide, Larry Summers, said on Thursday that the payroll tax break for 160 million Americans should be extended in order to help promote economic growth. The payroll tax, which funds the federal Social Security retirement program, is set to revert to 6.2 percent from 4.2 percent at the end of the year. "This is not the right moment to repeal the payroll tax cut," Summers told the Center for American Progress think tank. "It is $120 billion that enables cash-strapped families to spend money on what they need and provides incentives certainly for small businesses and perhaps beyond," he said. Summers said it was critical to spur growth and increase demand and warned that the country was still at risk of a "lost decade" of the "great stagnation."
- India's Infosys(INFY) Cuts Outlook as Global Clients Squeeze Costs.
- China Sept vehicle sales down 1.8 pct yr-on-yr.
- ECB's Coeure says c. bank won't be bullied: paper. The European Central Bank will not cave in to market pressure and buy bonds of euro zone governments whose borrowing costs have reached unsustainable levels if the country does not comply to the ECB’s rules, Executive Board member Benoit Coeure said. The ECB impressed markets last month by launching a new and potentially unlimited bond purchase programme under which it will buy governments’ short-term bonds once they have signed up to a European bailout programme. In an interview to be published on Friday in German newspaper Die Welt, Coeure doused hopes that the ECB would intervene regardless of whether its conditions were met once a country’s borrowing costs soared. “We will not cave in, but only intervene once our conditions have been met. We will prove it to you,” Coeure said, adding that the bank would only buy bonds if the International Monetary Fund was involved, even if only to monitor the programme. IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde on Thursday said that struggling European countries such as Greece should be given more time to reduce their budget gaps. Coeure, however, stressed that the ECB would not help Greece beyond providing solvent banks with liquidity in return for sufficient collateral. “It has to be clear that the central bank will not finance governments via the printing press, neither direct nor indirect. This means: If further emergency loans to banks are purely for buying government bonds, then the ECB Council should not approve it,” Coeure said.
- China's chances of meeting its 2012 foreign trade growth target of 10% are "hopeless," citing a "well-placed" person. The newspaper cites the European debt crisis as a reason.
- Chinese manufacturers based in Yiwu in the eastern province of Zhejiang received fewer Christmas orders this year because of weak demand from overseas clients. Fewer holiday orders may hurt China's exports in September and 3Q, citing Zhang Lei, an analyst at Minsheng Securities Co.
- Chinese banks won't likely pick up lending in 4Q as demand from companies remains weak, citing officials at commercial banks. Banks favor loans to state-run enterprises and their subsidiaries and have been more picky about the sectors they lend to, the report cites officials as saying. Economic fundamentals and poor earnings have deterred banks from lending, the report said.
- Researchers with China's Ministry of Land and Resources called for "appropriately" increasing land supplies to ease demand pressure and help stabilizing home prices, citing a meeting.
- Chinese large and medium-sized steelmakers had a combined loss of 4.2b yuan in August, citing an official with the China Iron & Steel Association. Steelmakers had a combined loss of 3.2b yuan in Jan.-Aug. period, the report says.
- None of note
- Asian equity indices are -.50% to +.25% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 130.0 -4.0 basis points.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 109.50 -1.5 basis points.
- FTSE-100 futures -.35%.
- S&P 500 futures +.14%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.06%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (JPM)/1.20
- (WFC)/.86
- (WBS)/.46
- (IGTE)/.37
- (DRH)/.18
8:30 am EST
- The Producer Price Index for September is estimated to rise +.8% versus a +1.7% gain in August.
- The PPI Ex Food & Energy for September is estimated to rise +.2% versus a +.2% gain in August.
- Preliminary Univ. of Mich. Consumer Confidence for October is estimated to fall to 78.0 versus 78.3 in September.
- The Monthly Budget Statement for September is estimated at $75.0B versus -$62.7B in August.
- None of note
- The Eurozone Industrial Production data, IMF/World Bank Group Annual/Spring Meetings and the (MU) Fall Analyst Conference could also impact trading today.
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