Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• Osborne Increases BOE Home-Plan Checks as Bubble Fears Rise. Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will introduce annual checks with the Bank of England over his Help-to-Buy program as he responds to mounting concerns that the plan may fuel excessive house-price increases. Osborne and the BOE’s Financial Policy Committee will reassess the program, which helps buyers purchase homes with as little as a 5 percent deposit, every September starting next year, the Treasury in London said. The FPC will advise Osborne on whether key parameters, such as the price cap and the fee charged to lenders, remain appropriate. The chancellor’s plan has drawn criticism from the International Monetary Fund and Business Secretary Vince Cable who say it may spark a property bubble.

• European Stocks Fall on Italy Auction, U.S. Budget Woes. European stocks declined as Italian bonds fell after a debt auction and concern grew that budget wrangling in Washington will lead to a government shutdown. Vallourec (VK) SA plunged 8.2 percent after warning that slower drilling in Brazil and a weak real may hurt profit. Vestas Wind Systems A/S (VWS) rose to its highest price since June 2011 after Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. and the Danish turbine maker agreed to form a venture to develop offshore wind energy. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index fell 0.3 percent to 312.18 at the close of trading.

• Gold Futures Rise to One-Week High on U.S. Stimulus Speculation. Gold futures for December delivery added 1.1 percent to $1,338.20 an ounce at 10:13 a.m. on the Comex in New York. Earlier, the price reached $1,345.20, the highest for a most-active contract since Sept. 20.

• Rubber Falls to One-Month Low as Stronger Yen Reduces Appeal. Rubber declined to the lowest level in a month, paring a quarterly advance, as a strengthening Japanese currency cut the appeal of the commodity used in tires. The contract for March delivery on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange lost 2.7 percent to end at 270.2 yen a kilogram ($2,741 a metric ton), the lowest settlement since Aug. 30. Futures have gained 14 percent this quarter, the first such climb this year, paring losses to 11 percent for the year.

• Goldman Sachs(GS), Morgan Stanley(MS) Estimates Lowered by Hintz. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) and Morgan Stanley (MS) had their earnings estimates lowered by Brad Hintz, a Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. analyst, amid a decline in trading he called “a full-scale rout.” Hintz cut Goldman Sachs’s third-quarter per-share earnings estimate by 15 percent to $2.62 and the full-year estimate by 8.6 percent to $15.59 per share, according to a note today about the two New York-based banks. Morgan Stanley’s per-share third-quarter estimate was decreased 20 percent to 41 cents, and the 2013 figure dropped 4.8 percent to $1.98. “While the third quarter is typically seasonally soft, Q3 2013 appears to be turning into a full-scale rout in trading as weak activity and limited risk-taking constrained performance,” Hintz wrote. Fixed-income trading volume could decline 20 percent to 25 percent on average in the three months ended Sept. 30, he wrote.

Wall Street Journal:

• Budget Battle: Streaming Coverage.

Fox News:

• ‘Stupid’: Dems refuse to consider tax-repeal compromise in ObamaCare standoff. President Obama and his congressional allies are digging in ahead of a series of key votes on a contentious budget bill, refusing to consider a potential compromise that might satisfy GOP demands to chip away at the health law. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went so far as to call one counterproposal "stupid."

MarketWatch:

• Will Obamacare hurt job creation and marriage? Commentary: Families and employers pay the price.

CNBC:

• Blackstone(BX): We're in an 'epic credit bubble'. One of the world's largest investment firms believes the financial system is overly leveraged. "We are in the middle of an epic credit bubble, in my opinion, the likes of which I haven't seen in my career in private equity," Joseph Baratta, The Blackstone Group's global head of private equity, said Thursday night at the Dow Jones Private Equity Analyst Conference in New York City. "The cost of a high yield bond on an absolute coupon basis is as low as it's ever been."

• Lumber Liquidators(LL) shares plunge after headquarters search.

• What you need to know if DC's fiscal follies deepen. With the grownups in Congress apparently no longer in charge, the risk of a government shutdown seems to have risen this week ahead of a Monday night deadline to pass a law funding operations.

Zero Hedge:

• Japan Pummeled By Soaring Food And Energy Prices, Plunging Wages And Ongoing Core Deflation.

• Italian GDP Slumps Fastest Since 1861's Unification. (graph)

• Personal Income, Spending Both As Expected; Savings Rate Rises To Highest Since May. (graph)

• Surge In Shipping Rates Temporary - Growth Hopes Dashed (Again). (graph)

• Goldman(GS) Slams Deutsche Bank(DB) Next, Expects "Severe Revenue/Profit Pressure".

• Consumer Sentiment Plunges To 5-Month Lows; Biggest Miss Of 2013. (graph)

• Five Years Later: FHA Demands $1.7 Billion Treasury Bail Out.

• European Peripheral Bond Risk Spikes Most In 6 Months. (graph)

Business Insider:

• NYSE Margin Debt Is Rising Once Again. (graph)

• ANALYST: JCPenney(JCP) Will Need A 'Historic' Holiday Season To Survive.

• ASSAD: Forget Chemicals, We Have Other Weapons That Could 'Blindside' Israel. 

• ALBERT EDWARDS: The Fed Is Inflating A Housing Bubble To Hide A Destabilizing Economic Problem.

@FGoria: 

• IMF on NPLs in Italian Banking System. (graph)

Washington Times:

• PAUL: Why must the American people suffer when even so many Democrats don’t want Obamacare? Officials who implemented the law should not escape its pain.

Real Clear Politics:

• Cavuto: Mr. President, Your Health Care Law Is The Problem. (video)

Reuters:

• Japan could face debt downgrade if budget deficit doesn't shrink: S&P. Japan could face a debt downgrade if it does not shrink its budget deficit, which is unlikely to return to primary balance by a targeted date of fiscal 2020, even if the prime minister's policies go well, a senior official of Standard & Poor's said. Japan's outstanding debt burden is the highest in the world at 1,000 trillion yen, or more than twice the size of its economy. Standard & Poor's remains doubtful about the scale of Japanese welfare reform and how much spending can be cut, Takahira Ogawa, director of sovereign ratings at the agency, told reporters on Friday.

• Brazil sees private banks slowing loan disbursements pace. Brazil's private-sector banks will keep slowing the pace of new loan disbursements through the end of the year, the central bank said on Friday, a sign that an approach to avoiding risky lending will stretch for a longer period than previously thought. The central bank cut the estimate for loan book growth among domestic non-government lenders to 6 percent from a prior 10 percent forecast. Likewise, it lowered the same estimate for foreign lenders operating in the country to 7 percent from 8 percent previously.

• BlackBerry(BBRY) confirms deep loss and revenue drop. BlackBerry Ltd reported a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion on Friday, in line with a warning it gave last week, just days after the smartphone maker accepted its largest shareholder's tentative $4.7 billion bid to take it private. The report showed Blackberry turned in a particularly limp performance in Latin America, a region it recently touted as a enthusiastic supporter of its devices.

Financial Times:

• Obama and Republicans remain poles apart as twin crises loom. Days from the first deadline in a series of cascading budget crises, President Barack Obama and his Republican opponents remain far apart on resolving their latest stand-off over the reach of government, symbolised by his health reforms.