Today's Headlines

Bloomberg:  

• Putin Talks of Sending Russian Combat Troops to Syria. (video)
• Brazil Meltdown Dims Outlook for Mexican Companies Like Slim's. Mexican companies including billionaire Carlos Slim’s America Movil SAB are becoming the latest victims of Brazil’s woes. America Movil, as well as bottler Coca-Cola Femsa SAB and petrochemical Mexichem SAB, have expanded into Brazil in search of growth beyond their home market. Now they’re feeling the pain as South America’s largest economy heads for its worst recession since the 1930s, causing middle-class families to scale back consumption on everything from soft drinks to pay-TV packages. Brazil’s fast-growing middle class had appealed to Mexican companies, especially America Movil, which has been facing penalties set by regulators in Mexico for its dominance. 
• Europe Faces Even Bigger Refugee Crisis Ahead, Denmark Says. Denmark’s foreign minister, Kristian Jensen, says Europe needs to change its approach in handling the refugee crisis or risk an even bigger human catastrophe. After suffering criticism for its limited intake of asylum seekers compared with neighboring Sweden, Denmark’s government is now trying to defend its policies. Speaking in a phone interview on Thursday, Jensen said the migration wave currently overwhelming Europe can only be dealt with if governments in the region devote more resources to improving conditions in the countries being fled. He says failure to do so will lead to a bigger crisis as the mass exodus spreads to Jordan and other countries bordering Syria.
• Catalan Independence Push Close to Majority, Pollster Says. Junts pel Si, the ad-hoc platform pushing for Catalan independence, is set to win more than 40 percent of the vote in this month’s election, putting it within reach of an outright majority in the regional assembly, said Narciso Michavila, chairman of polling company GAD3. Support for the campaign is growing as regional President Artur Mas and his allies pull in most of the votes they won on separate party tickets in 2012, Michavila, whose firm is conducting several quantitative and qualitative studies on the election, said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Spanish electoral law benefits the most popular parties so it’s possible to win a majority with less than 50 percent of the vote. Mas and ally Oriol Junqueras’s Esquerra Republicana controlled 71 of the 135 seats in the Catalan parliament before the president called early elections on Sept. 27 to seek a mandate for his plan to break away from Spain. “In 2012, about 45 percent of the vote went to pro-independence parties, ” said Michavila, whose firm has Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s People’s Party among its clients. “I clearly see them retaining the vote they got in the previous elections.” Should Mas and Junqueras fail to reach the 68 seats they need for a majority, they could still turn to the Popular Unity Candidacy, or CUP, to get over the line. 
• Siemens Falls After Goldman Sachs Downgrade on Outlook Risks. Siemens AG fell the most in two weeks after Goldman Sachs Group Inc. said it no longer recommended buying shares in Europe’s largest engineering company given a risk of further profit disappointments. The company, based in Munich, is facing increasing challenges as the economies of both Germany and China slow, Goldman Sachs said in a report outlining why it downgraded its rating on Siemens stock to “neutral” from “buy.” Last year’s $9 billion spend on acquisitions has failed to spur the stock, it said. The shares fell as much as 2.2 percent.
• Two Mistakes the Fed Made in Holding Rates Steady. (video)
• RBS’s Gallo Says Fed Decision Wrong for Global Markets. (video)
• OMFIF’s Desai Says the Federal Reserve Made a Mistake. (video)
• Dollar Will Rise to Parity With Euro, Principal Global Says. The dollar is poised to strengthen to parity with the euro in the next 12 months as the Federal Reserve is still on course to raise interest rates, even after deciding not to act this week, according to Principal Global Investors. The U.S currency will likely appreciate to 125 yen during the same period, said Jim McCaughan, chief executive officer of Principal, which manages about $350 billion. The Fed decided at its meeting Thursday against raising its benchmark amid financial market turmoil and rising risks of a global economic slowdown. “It would require a much greater shock than I see to the world or U.S. economy to see rates not go up,” New York-based McCaughan said in an interview in Singapore. “The dollar will not be held back by the dovish monetary policy for an awful lot longer.”  
• Brazil's Stocks Slump as Political Turmoil Eclipses Fed Decision.
  Brazilian stocks missed out on the gains in most emerging markets amid speculation President Dilma Rousseff will fail to shore up the budget and revive Latin America’s largest economy.
  The benchmark equity gauge trimmed the best weekly rally in five months, countering an advance in stocks from developing nations that was spurred by the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep interest rates on hold. The Ibovespa has plunged 17 percent from this year’s peak in May as the government struggles to boost its finances and Brazil heads toward the longest recession since the 1930s amid a widening graft probe. "A lot has been said by the government about plans to put the country back on track, but we must urgently move from talk to action," Adeodato Volpi Netto, the head of capital markets at the equity research firm Eleven Financial, said from Sao Paulo. "The economy is falling to pieces, and we need signals that things can improve before this year ends." The Ibovespa gauge dropped 0.8 percent to 48,166.63 at 12:58 p.m. in Sao Paulo.
• European Stocks Fall With Carmakers as Fed Inaction Boosts Euro. European stocks fell the most in two weeks after the Federal Reserve’s decision to keep rates unchanged stoked global-growth concerns and a stronger euro weighed on export-dependent companies. Daimler AG, Volkswagen AG and BMW AG dragged automakers to a 3.3 percent drop, and Germany’s DAX Index led declines among western-European markets with a 3.1 percent slide. The inverse correlation between the Stoxx Europe 600 Index and the single currency reached levels not seen since 2003. The Stoxx 600 slid 1.8 percent to 354.77 at the close of trading, for a 0.3 percent weekly retreat.
• U.S. Shale Drillers Are Drowning in Debt. As much as 400,000 barrels a day of oil production is at risk as U.S. shale companies like Samson Resources Co. run out of money and are forced to slow drilling. Total debt for half of the companies in a Bloomberg index of more than 60 producers has risen to a level that represents 40 percent of their enterprise value. It’s a sign of distress that shows equity values falling in the face of oil’s crash, said Rob Thummel, a managing director and portfolio manager at Tortoise Capital Advisors LLC who helps manage $15.6 billion.  
• Market Addiction to Liquidity May Have Delayed Fed, Natixis Says. (video) Financial markets may have been more of a factor than the economy in the Federal Reserve’s decision to leave interest rates near zero, in a cause for concern, according to Patrick Artus, chief economist at French investment bank Natixis SA. “Something that really worries me is that the delay by the Federal Reserve was not a reaction to the economy, even the global economy, it was a reaction to the fact that the financial community has an addiction to liquidity,” Artus said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “This addiction to liquidity is very difficult to break.”
• One Sign That Manhattan's Super-Luxury Condo Market Is Over. (video) Manhattan’s growing inventory of ultra-luxury condominiums has another big developer seeing signs of a glut. Toll Brothers Inc.(TOL), the largest U.S. luxury-home builder, is zeroing in on smaller apartments with lower prices in Manhattan after watching expensive units sit on the market, said David Von Spreckelsen, the New York division president of the company’s City Living unit. Its latest project, at 55 W. 17th St. in Chelsea, will have an average asking price per square foot less than at new buildings in the rest of the borough.
• U.S. Looking at Chicago Trader as Probe Over Fake Orders Widens. Federal prosecutors are investigating whether a Chicago trader placed fake orders in an attempt to manipulate prices, said two people familiar with the matter, as the Justice Department broadens its effort to police the $30 trillion U.S. futures market. A grand jury is hearing testimony in Chicago about possible commodities-market manipulation and in particular about the actions of Igor Oystacher, one of the people said. This comes on top of a regulatory probe and concerns raised in the past year by two exchanges about Oystacher, the co-founder of proprietary trading firm 3Red.
• Business-Jet Slump Damps Rockwell Collins(COL) 2016 Forecast. The slowdown in business-jet production is starting to weigh on aerospace suppliers such as Rockwell Collins Inc. The maker of aviation electronics forecast a 2016 profit Friday that was short of analysts’ estimates, citing “weak market conditions” for corporate aircraft. Projected revenue for the fiscal year starting in October also lagged behind estimates. Rockwell Collins’s outlook underscored the challenges for airframe manufacturers and their partsmakers amid questions about slowing global economic growth. After jet deliveries rose in 2014, signaling optimism that the industry was emerging from the slump that followed the financial crisis, first-half shipments fell 4.1 percent this year.

Wall Street Journal: 

• Breaking: Pentagon says Russia has moved its first tactical fighter jets to base in Syria.

CNBC:

• Johnson Controls(JCI) to cut 3,000 jobs in 2 years. 
• This bank just slashed its S&P earnings outlook to zero.
• Chart experts fear Fed whiff means back to lows. 
• The Fed has to deal with its own zombie apocalypse. (video) One reason that hasn't gotten much attention is the need for the Fed to keep rates low both for government debt and the corporations that now have $12.5 trillion in debt. Among the prime beneficiaries of zero interest rates have been low-rated companies that have been able to borrow money at rates often in the 5 to 6 percent range.

Zero Hedge:

• Chinese Propaganda Full Retard: Burst Stock Bubble Declared A Good Thing. (graph)
• Census Data Confirms: There Was No Economic Recovery Unless You Were Already Rich.
• US Oil Rig Count Drops For 3rd Week To 2-Month Lows. (graph)
• In Thrall To The Federal Reserve.
• Hawks, Doves & Chickens.
• Buiter: Migrant Crisis "May Signal The Beginning Of The End" For EU.
• "S&P < 1870 Until QE4 Or China QE1" - Seven Observations On The Fed's "Shocking" Announcement.
• Martin Armstrong Warns: The Fed Just Made The Same Mistake As It Did In 1927.
• Gold & Silver Pumping, Crude & Copper Dumping. (graph)
• Greece Heads Back To The Polls: Full Sunday Election Preview.

Business Insider:

• The IRS says Coke owes $3.3 billion.
• There's no way around it: Brazil is a disaster.
• 'Bad news on ISIS wasn't welcome': We know more about how US officials reportedly cooked ISIS intel.
• Greece's election race is neck and neck — and Athens could still drag Europe into another crisis.

San Diego Union Tribune:

• Qualcomm(QCOM) Cuts 1,300 Jobs in San Diego. Qualcomm eliminates 1,314 full-time jobs in San Diego and hundreds elsewhere as it revamps amid slower growth in smartphone market, citing company.

Financial Times:

• German banks at risk of ‘alarming’ profit fall. German banks are at risk of suffering an “alarming” fall in profits in the next four years because Europe’s persistently low interest rates are wiping out their income, the country’s financial watchdogs warned on Friday.

Telegraph: 

• Fed is riding the tail of a dangerous global tiger. Janet Yellen had to hold fire this week, but risks an even nastier crunch later if inflation forces the Fed has to slam on the brakes suddenly.