Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:

• France’s Economy Most Serious Threat for EU, Bankers Say. France’s economy poses the most serious threat to Europe’s recovery from a debt crisis that has crippled growth and driven unemployment to record highs, according to a survey of bankers and their regulators in Frankfurt. The outlook for France is more concerning than prospects for Italy, Spain or Germany, said 61 percent of respondents in the electronic survey held at a conference in the euro-area’s financial capital today. France “desperately needs leadership,” Timothy Adams, the Institute of International Finance Chief Executive Officer, said in a panel discussion at the conference. “There’s a lack of concern about competitiveness in France,” Andre Sapir, an economist and senior fellow at Bruegel, a Brussels-based think tank, said on the same panel. 

• Italy, Spain Face Budget Scrutiny as Euro Ministers Meet. Italy and Spain will defend their 2014 spending plans at a meeting of euro-area finance ministers today, risking a clash over economic frailties that could undermine efforts to pull the currency bloc out of a debt crisis now in its fifth year. Fabrizio Saccomanni of Italy and Luis de Guindos of Spain will be called upon to justify their draft budgets at the meeting in Brussels, amid fears that complacency is setting in following the easing of bond-market pressure over the past 18 months. 

• Most European Stocks Rise Amid German Confidence Report. Most European stocks advanced as German business confidence rose to the highest level since April 2012 and investors weighed comments by European Central Bank officials. Daily Mail & General Trust Plc (DMGT) gained 3.5 percent after Barclays Plc upgraded its recommendation on the newspaper publisher. Whitbread Plc climbed 3 percent after JPMorgan Chase & Co. raised its rating of the company to overweight, similar to buy. Rhoen-Klinikum AG fell 3.3 percent after saying its second-biggest shareholder sued to block the sale of 43 clinics to Fresenius SE’s Helios unit. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.1 percent to 322.77 at the close, as almost three shares in the gauge increased for every two that fell.

• Indian Banks’ Rising Bad Debt Is ‘Major Challenge,’ RBI Says. Rising bad loans at Indian lenders remain “a major challenge” amid a slowdown in Asia’s third-largest economy, the nation’s central bank said. Nonperforming loans rose to 986 billion rupees ($15.7 billion) at the end of March from 652 billion rupees a year earlier, the Reserve Bank of India said in a report yesterday on the country’s banking industry. The ratio of sour debt to total lending swelled to 3.6 percent from 3.1 percent. More debtors are finding it harder to pay off loans in a $1.8 trillion economy that is projected to grow in the year ending March 2014 at the weakest pace in more than a decade. Rising bad loans contributed to a 35 percent slump in State Bank of India (SBIN)’s net income for the quarter ended Sept. 30. “Macro stress tests indicate that if the current macroeconomic conditions persist, the credit quality of commercial banks could deteriorate further,” the Mumbai-based RBI said. “In the short term, the stress on banks’ asset quality remains a major challenge.”  

• Pakistani Doctor Who Hunted Bin Laden Accused of Murder. A Pakistani doctor who helped the U.S. track down Osama bin Laden faces charges in a murder case after a woman accused him of causing the death of her son from an operation six years ago, a defense lawyer said. A court in the Khyber tribal region along the border with Afghanistan has registered a case based on the complaint by the woman against the doctor, Shakil Afridi, his lawyer Samiullah Afridi said by phone from the city of Peshawar. Doctor Afridi already is imprisoned after being sentenced to 33 years in jail in 2012 for providing funding and medical assistance to the militants of the now-defunct group Lashkar-e-Islami. He hasn’t been charged for covert ties to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency that the Pakistani government denounced.

Wall Street Journal:

• For Small Businesses, a Hidden Tax in Health Care? Smaller Companies Expected to Bear the Brunt of Little-Known Fee for Insurers. Starting next year, small businesses are among those poised to bear the brunt of a little known tax created by the Affordable Care Act that will impose an annual "fee" on health-insurance companies. The fee is expected to bring in a total of $8 billion next year and as much as $14.3 billion by 2018, according to the legislation, and will be spread out among insurers based on the percent of the market they cover.

Fox News:

• Filibuster Fallout: Reid maneuver could send ‘wrecking ball’ through talks on key legislation.

CNBC: 

• ‘Sentiment is too high,’ stock market bull says. (video)

• Cramer: 'There's bubbling everywhere'. (video) "In other words, there's bubbling everywhere, and it does worry me," Cramer said Friday on "Squawk on the Street." "We saw too much cloud. We saw too much organic food. And now I think we're getting too much of a whole set of areas."

Zero Hedge: 

• David Stockman Blasts "It's 2007/8 All Over Again". "Bubbles are breaking out everywhere," exclaims outspoken former-insider David Stockman in this brief FoxTV clip, warning that "its like 2007/2008 all over again." 

• Europe Unveils Its Latest Deus Ex Machina Growth Bazooka: Encourage Debt-Cutting "Reform" With Even More Debt. (graph)

• Bill Ackman Admits $500 Million Herbalife Loss, Stock Surge Adds To Pain.

• Which Is It? According To The BLS, The Average Monthly Job Gain In 2013 Is Either 184K Or 20% Lower.

• Which Is It? According To The BLS, The Average Monthly Job Gain In 2013 Is Either 184K Or 20% Lower. (graph)

• Circular Bubble Logic.

• Hugh Hendry Capitulates: "Can't Look At Himself In The Mirror" As He Throws In The Towel, Turns Bullish.

ValueWalk:

• Herbalife(HLF): Bill Ackman Says He Still Hates It, Shares Surge.

CNN:

• Obama approval rating sinks to new low in CNN poll. According to a CNN/ORC poll released Thursday, 41% of Americans approve of the job the President's doing in the White House, the lowest level for that crucial indicator in CNN polling. Fifty-six percent questioned say they disapprove of Obama's performance, an all-time high in CNN surveys.

Washington Post:

• The Democrats’ naked power grab. “Congress is broken,” Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday before holding a party-line vote that disposed of rules that have guided and protected the chamber since 1789. If Congress wasn’t broken before, it certainly is now. What Reid (Nev.) and his fellow Democrats effectively did was take the chamber of Congress that still functioned at a modest level and turn it into a clone of the other chamber, which functions not at all. They turned the Senate into the House.

Reuters:

• EMERGING MARKETS-Brazil's Bovespa index rebounds though banks sink.

Telegraph:

• Oil is both the lifeblood and the poison of the global economy. For all the talk of green power, it’s black gold that still drives the economic cycle - and the key to prices is Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest producer. According to research by the Centre for Global Energy Studies, the minimum price Saudi Arabia needs at the present level of production to sustain government expenditure is $86 per barrel. This compares with $64 just four years ago. Saudi has jacked up public spending substantially following the Arab Spring in an attempt to keep the locals quiescent. The survival of the sheikhs carries a very high price, and may in itself have come to dictate the level of the global oil price.

Handelsblatt:

• Dijsselbloem Says France Must Do More to Reform. Eurogroup chairman Jeroen Dijsselbloem is in favor of deadlines for reforms, citing the Dutch finance minister.