Today's Headlines
Bloomberg:
- Kurds Battle Islamic State for Strategic Syrian Hilltop. Islamic
State fighters advanced into Kobani near Turkey’s border with Syria, as
the three-week battle for the mostly Kurdish town intensified. Fierce
fighting raged in eastern neighborhoods of Kobani, as the militants
unleashed the heaviest barrage of artillery fire since they began
advancing on the town in mid-September, Al Jazeera television reported.
The Islamic State flag was flying over a building in Kobani, Jazeera
said.
- Hong Kong Government Agrees Formal Talks With Protesters. Hong
Kong’s government and pro-democracy protesters agreed to start formal
talks as demonstrations that shut roads and offices in the city showed
signs of
winding down.
- Ruble Slumps Toward Intervention Levels, Heading for Record Low. The ruble weakened for a second day,
testing the central bank’s intervention level, as oil slumped to
the lowest level in more than two years. The ruble retreated 0.1 percent to 44.4893 against the
regulator’s basket of dollars and euros at 6 p.m. in Moscow,
when the central bank stops its market operations. The price of
oil, which with natural gas brings the state budget half its
revenue, fell 0.9 percent to $91.52 a barrel in London, the lowest level
since June 2012. The ruble dropped 14 percent against the dollar last
quarter, the worst performance globally,
as crude slid and clashes continued in east Ukraine.
- German Factory Orders Slump Most Since 2009: Economy. (video) German factory orders (GRIORTMM) plunged the most since 2009, underlining the risk of a slowdown in Europe’s largest economy. Orders,
adjusted for seasonal swings and inflation, fell 5.7 percent in August,
the Economy Ministry in Berlin said today. Economists predicted a 2.5
percent decline, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg
News survey. The data are volatile, and the drop followed a 4.9 percent
increase in
July that was the most in more than a year. Orders fell 1.3 percent from
a year earlier.
- Ebola Screening at U.S. Airports Under Consideration.
The Obama administration is considering screening airline passengers for
Ebola symptoms as they arrive in the U.S. from some West African
nations, an approach that had been previously rejected.
- Paulson Testifies He Discussed Financial Bailout With China. Henry Paulson, the former treasury secretary, said he talked with
China about helping bail out financial firms in 2008, in the first
discussion of the rescue scheme in a court by one of its leading
architects. Paulson’s testimony of less than half a day left lawyers
scrambling for witnesses because Timothy Geithner, the head of the New
York Fed in 2008, wasn’t available yet. The federal court in Washington
adjourned until the afternoon.
- Europe Shares Pare Gains in Last Hour; Index Futures Drop. (video) European shares rose for a second day, paring gains in the last hour
of trading. Stock-index futures declined after the market close. The Stoxx Europe 600 Index added 0.2 percent to 336 at the close of trading, after earlier climbing as much as 0.8 percent.
Futures on the Euro Stoxx 50 Index expiring in December fell 0.5
percent at 5:31 p.m. in London. “It’s a shaky rebound,” said Michael
Woischneck, who manages equities at Lampe Asset Management in
Dusseldorf, Germany. “Europe’s economy is taking longer to heal and data
is still weak. The market really needs good earnings and strong
outlooks out of the U.S.” The Stoxx 600 dropped 2.1 percent last week.
- Tumbling Oil Prices Punish Hedge Funds Betting on Gains. Hedge funds increased bets on rising oil prices just before crude futures tumbled to a 17-month low
on signs that global supply is outstripping demand.
- Credit Swap Indexes Trade After $17 Trillion Market Overhaul. The biggest overhaul of the global
credit derivatives market starts today with new benchmark index
contracts addressing flaws that prevented some bondholders from
being fully compensated for losses. The shakeup of the $17 trillion credit-default swap market
increases the cost of insuring junior bank bonds and sovereign
debt because new terms provide greater protection. The Markit
iTraxx Crossover Index of swaps linked to high-yield borrowers
is also being broadened to reflect the growth of the junk bond
market.
- S&P 500 Companies Spend 95% of Profits on Buybacks, Payouts.
Companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index really love their
shareholders. Maybe too much. They’re poised to spend $914 billion on
share buybacks and dividends this year, or about 95 percent of earnings,
data compiled by Bloomberg and S&P Dow Jones Indices show. Money
returned to stock owners exceeded profits in the first quarter and may
again in the third. The proportion of cash flow used for repurchases
has almost doubled over the last decade while it’s slipped for capital
investments, according to Jonathan Glionna, head of U.S. equity strategy research at Barclays Plc. “You can only go so far with financial engineering before you actually have to have a business with real growth,”
Chris Bouffard, chief investment officer who oversees $9 billion at
Mutual Fund Store in Overland Park, Kansas, said by phone on Oct. 2. “Companies have done
about all that they can in terms of maximizing the ability to do those
buybacks.”
CNBC:
- Waldorf becomes most expensive hotel ever sold: $1.95 billion. (video)
The hotel famously called "the greatest of them all" is now the most
expensive of them all. Hilton Worldwide Holdings said it's selling the famed Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York for $1.95 billion to China-based buyer Anbang Insurance Group.
- Ken Griffin's Citadel sees huge surge in assets. Ken Griffin may be making news for a nasty divorce, but his hedge fund firm has quietly been sucking up assets. Chicago-based Citadel now has $24 billion under
management, 50 percent more than the $16.1 billion it managed at the beginning of 2014, according to industry publication Alpha, citing people familiar with the firm.
ZeroHedge:
Business Insider:
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