- Obamacare Exchanges Debut With Websites Down, Delays. The Obamacare insurance exchanges got off to a rocky start, with many websites meant to provide new access to the uninsured seeing delays or breakdowns. New York’s exchange was swamped with 2.5 million visitors in the first half-hour, officials there said. The U.S.-run marketplace meant to serve 36 states was unresponsive early today, with messages saying the site was dealing with “a lot of visitors” or simply “down.” Federal officials are aware of the delays and working on fixing them as quickly as possible, said an administration official who wasn’t authorized to speak about the issues on the record. Of the 14 states and Washington D.C. that have their own exchanges, only four -- Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Colorado and Washington, D.C. -- appeared to be up and ready for business between 9:30 and 10:30 a.m. New York time. After New York’s website began displaying error messages, state officials began advising people on Twitter to call to sign up, and said wait-times at the state call center were about 10 minutes. “The not-so-good news is the wheels aren’t turning as quickly as they could,” said Cesar Perales, New York’s secretary of state, at a news conference in New York City. “We are doing something that has never been done before.”
- Germany’s Unemployment Unexpectedly Rose in September. German unemployment unexpectedly increased for a second month in September, in a sign the recovery in Europe’s largest economy remains uneven. The number of people out of work climbed a seasonally adjusted 25,000 to 2.98 million, after gaining by 9,000 in August, the Nuremberg-based Federal Labor Agency said today. Economists predicted a decline by 5,000, according to the median of 27 estimates in a Bloomberg News survey. The adjusted jobless rate rose to 6.9 percent from 6.8 percent. Companies from Siemens AG to RWE AG have announced job cuts as they try to manage costs amid a recovery in the 17-nation euro area that the European Central Bank has described as “fragile.”
- Bond Investors Unfazed as French Economy Fix Slows: Euro Credit. President Francois Hollande has rattled the European Commission and business leaders by slowing France's economic revamp. So far, the bond market is unruffled. The Socialist president introduced changes in the past month to plug the shortfall in the pension system by relying on this year's already lowered budget-deficit targets. "France is slowly drifting off course," said Bruno Cavalier, an economist at Oddo Securities in Paris. "The drift is slow but seems inexorable. Yet it has met with nothing but indifference from investors."
- European Stocks Advance as Investors Weigh U.S. Shutdown. European stocks climbed, rebounding from their biggest decline in a month, as investors assessed the impact of a partial shutdown of the U.S. government. Telecom Italia SpA rose 5.2 percent after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. reinstated its buy rating on the shares. Vestas Wind Systems A/S gained 6.8 percent after Bank of America Corp. raised its price forecast on the Danish maker of wind turbines. Unilever slid to its lowest price in 10 months as the world’s second-largest consumer-goods maker said sales growth slowed in the third quarter. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.8 percent to 312.86 at the close of trading.
- Euro’s Eight-Month High at Risk on ECB Stimulus: Market Reversal. Trading patterns in the euro show its rally to an eight-month high is vulnerable, as a political crisis in Italy and speculation the European Central Bank will pump liquidity into the financial system weigh on the currency.
- Copper Falls on Concern U.S. Government Shutdown to Sap Demand. Copper futures fell the most in almost four weeks in New York on concern that a government shutdown will slow U.S. economic growth and hinder a global recovery in manufacturing. Copper futures for delivery in December lost 1.8 percent to $3.2635 a pound at 10:48 a.m. on the Comex in New York, heading for the biggest drop since Sept. 4. Through yesterday, the commodity fell 9 percent this year amid concern that output will exceed demand. The Standard & Poor’s GSCI Index of 24 commodities dropped to a seven-week low.
- Fed Said to Widen Commodities Review to Goldman, Morgan Stanley. The Federal Reserve has expanded its scrutiny of banks’ physical commodities operations to encompass businesses run by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS:US) and Morgan Stanley (MS:US) that Congress had previously authorized.
- Lawmakers, Obama Spar Over Shutdown. Next Steps Uncertain as Senate Rejects Latest House Plan; President Says Health Law Is 'Here to Stay'. President Barack Obama placed blame for the government shutdown squarely on House Republicans Tuesday, saying that one faction of one party is holding the country hostage over ideological demands.
- Phony Web Traffic Tricks Digital Ads. As Online Marketing Budgets Soar, Fraudsters Skim Millions with 'Botnets''. The website Songsrpeople.com looks a lot like other amateur-video sites. It is wallpapered with clips featuring "the most insane amusement park ever" and "your girlfriend's six friends." The site draws tens of thousands of visitors a month, according to audience measurement firms. It also has ads for national brands, including Target Corp., Amazon.com Inc. and State Farm. But Web-security investigators at a firm called White Ops contend that most of the site's visitors aren't people. Rather, they are computer-generated visitors, or "bots," designed to fool advertisers into paying for the traffic, says White Ops, which has blacklisted the site—and thousands more like it—so that ads from clients such as Zipcar don't land there.
- The Political Science of Global Warming. The U.N.'s latest climate-change report should be its last.
- Merck(MRK) to slash about 8,500 jobs, cut expenses by about $2.5 billion. Pharmaceutical giant Merck announced plans on Tuesday to slash an additional 8,500 jobs on top of previously announced job cuts, adding that it planned to cut operating expenses by $2.5 billion by the end of 2015. With prior job cuts, Merck's workforce will be reduced by about 20 percent.
- Gold tumbles as investors watch Washington dysfunction. The December gold futures contract was down about 2.6 percent, to $1,292 per troy ounce in late morning trading. Silver also skidded, losing more than 4 percent.
- Corporate profit outlook is weak and getting weaker. Corporate profits are tracking at about a third of original expectations and trending lower, setting up a potentially rough ride when reporting season begins next week.
- Icahn: I pushed for a $150 billion buyback from Apple CEO Tim Cook. (video) The billionaire investor said Tuesday on CNBC's "Fast Money" that the tech giant is missing a golden opportunity if it doesn't issue a bigger share buyback, and he intends to make sure that shareholders are represented even if the board does not want to go ahead with a bigger buyback.
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- Coal mining job losses accelerate, fueling industry's 'war on coal' message. (graph) Employment among U.S. coal miners plummeted by roughly 19% in the first quarter compared to the end of 2012, according to federal data, with job losses accelerating nationwide as persistently low natural gas prices and increasing coal plant retirements cut domestic coal burn and producers come to the conclusion that the current market downturn may be worse the ever before.
- Zulauf Asset Management's Zulauf Sees Drop in Global Shares. Felix Zulauf, founder of Zulauf Asset Management, said in an interview today that "in the short term, global equity markets are in a correction phase, which should last all of October." Sees correction of between 5%-7%.
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