Bloomberg:
- Russia Link Said Suspected in White House Computer Attack. U.S. cybersecurity specialists suspect that Russian government or criminal hackers were responsible for an attack on an unclassified White House computer system, according to two American officials. It’s not clear whether the attack was carried out by Russian government agents or criminals, the officials said today, speaking on condition of anonymity because they aren’t authorized to speak to the media. The line between agents and criminal hackers is sometimes non-existent, they said.
- Ukraine Pro-EU Parties Wrangle as Premier Snubs President. The 54,439 votes separating the blocs of Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and President Petro Poroshenko were enough to sow discord among the winners of last weekend’s ballot.
- Mosul’s Children Lured to Islamic State to Swell Ranks. The al-Qaeda breakaway group has lured and coerced hundreds of the city’s youth into joining its ranks, according to an official from the Nineveh province’s education department, who asked to be identified as Abu Marwan for security reasons.
- Brazil Unexpectedly Lifts Rate on Rousseff Vow to Tame CPI. Brazil unexpectedly raised its key rate for the first time since April, after President Dilma Rousseff said she would vigorously fight inflation (BZPIIPCY) in her second term. Policy makers, led by central bank President Alexandre Tombini, voted 5-to-3 to raise the benchmark Selic by a quarter-point to 11.25 percent, saying the move would reduce the cost of ensuring a better inflation outlook in 2015 and 2016. One of 54 economists surveyed by Bloomberg correctly forecast the increase while the remaining expected the rate to be left unchanged for the fourth straight meeting.
- China’s Property Prices May Decline Up to 10%, SouFun Says. China property prices may decline as much as 10 percent this year and the slump may extend into 2015, according to SouFun Holdings Ltd. “Chinese property prices are seeing an adjustment after the rapid increase in the past two years,” Vincent Mo, founder of China’s biggest real estate information website, said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Haslinda Amin in Singapore yesterday. “Prices should stabilize by the middle of next year.”
- ICBC Posts Biggest Jump in Bad Loans Since ’06 on Economy. Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., the world’s largest lender by assets, reported its biggest jump in bad loans since at least 2006 as the property market slumped and the economy cooled. Nonperforming loans rose 9 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, the Beijing-based bank said in anexchange filing yesterday. Net income gained 7.7 percent from a year earlier to 72.4 billion yuan ($11.8 billion), matching the median analyst estimate in a Bloomberg News survey.
- Metals Investors Seeing Slowdown Head for Exit From ETPs. Investors are pulling out of industrial-metals funds at the fastest pace in 15 months, signaling increased concern that a faltering global economy will slow demand for everything from cars to appliances.
- Dollar Jumps as Fed Ends Bond Buying While Nickel, Crude Retreat. The dollar climbed to a three-week high after the Federal Reserve judged the U.S. economy strong enough to end its asset-purchase program. Industrial metals and oil fell with Hong Kong stocks. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index gained 0.1 percent by 11:01 a.m. in Tokyo, with the yen weakening 0.2 percent and Indonesia’s rupiah leading emerging-market currencies lower. Nickel retreated 1 percent and West Texas Intermediate crude oil slid 0.4 percent. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index dropped 0.3 percent after its biggest two-day rally in seven months.
- Fed Closes Chapter on Easy Money. Benefit of Bond-Buying Experiment Remains Unclear as Central Bank’s Focus Returns to Interest Rates.
- Energy Boom Can Withstand Steeper Oil-Price Drop. Some Smaller U.S. Producers Are Likely to Face Pinch From a More-Modest Decline.
- Maine Nurse Kaci Hickox Says She Won’t Obey Isolation Rules. Says She Will Go to Court if Restrictions Aren’t Removed by Thursday.
- Democrats Crash-Land the Planet. Republicans are hammering Democrats with the wrecked world their priorities created. Want to know how to really scare a Democratic candidate for Congress on Halloween? Forget the Sarah Palin mask. Don’t say “Boo!” Just slip up behind them and whisper, “national security.” They’ll jump from here into next week’s election.
- Death spiral? Short-term health plans grow as cheap alternative to ObamaCare. A fast-growing, short-term alternative to ObamaCare that allows customers to get cheap, one-year policies could put the government-subsidized plan into a death spiral.
Business Insider:
Reuters:
- NASA explosion fuels concerns about Russian engines, oversight. The explosion of an Orbital Science Corp supply rocket over Virginia could accelerate U.S. efforts to replace aging Russian space technology with a pricey homegrown rocket engine. Even before the crash on Tuesday, Orbital had planned to switch to another engine for future launches, given the age of Soviet-era motors now in use as well as uncertainty about future supplies.
- U.S. prosecutors reopen probes against several big banks -NYT. U.S. prosecutors are reopening investigations into big banks on suspicion they may have violated agreements under which the institutions settled prior cases against them, The New York Times reported, citing lawyers briefed with the matter. With the settlements, the banks avoided criminal prosecution and instead paid fines and implemented reforms. Among the banks named in the report were Standard Chartered Plc and Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ.
- Akamai(AKAM) expects strong US dollar to weigh on 4th-qtr revenue. Akamai Technologies Inc, whose service helps speed up delivery of Web content, said a stronger U.S. dollar would hurt revenue growth in the current quarter, sending its shares down as much as 5 percent in after-market trade.
- Visa(V) sees mobile payment as big growth driver. Visa Inc reported a better-than-expected adjusted quarterly profit and said the mobile payment industry would be "a great driver" for business, sending its shares up nearly 4 percent in extended trading.
- China's Baidu(BIDU) posts Q3 revenue below analysts' targets. Baidu Inc posted a less-than-expected 52 percent surge in third-quarter revenue, even as mobile traffic for China's dominant Internet search engine continued to grow.
- None of note
- Asian equity indices are -.50% to +.50% on average.
- Asia Ex-Japan Investment Grade CDS Index 111.0 unch.
- Asia Pacific Sovereign CDS Index 64.25 -.5 basis point.
- FTSE-100 futures +.08%.
- S&P 500 futures +.04%.
- NASDAQ 100 futures +.07%.
Earnings of Note
Company/Estimate
- (APD)/1.61
- (ABC)/1.05
- (MDC)/.50
- (PBI)/.46
- (LLL)/1.84
- (STRA)/.18
- (COP)/1.21
- (CME)/.82
- (ATK)/2.94
- (AVP)/.16
- (MA)/.78
- (DBD)/.50
- (CI)/1.83
- (BG)/1.90
- (MOS)/.58
- (JCI)/1.00
- (MO)/.68
- (AMT)/1.07
- (CAH)/.96
- (K)/.92
- (SBUX)/.74
- (GPRO)/.08
- (NEM)/.16
- (MHK)/2.42
- (SPF)/.15
- (LNKD)/.47
- (MCHP)/.67
- (FLR)/1.10
- (PPS)/.45
- (EXPE)/1.74
- (PSA)/2.06
- (CSC)/1.01
10:30 am EST
- Initial Jobless Claims are estimated to rise to 285K versus 283K the prior week.
- Continuing Claims are estimated to rise to 2352K versus 2351K prior.
- 3Q GDP is estimated to rise 3.0% versus a +4.6% gain in 2Q.
- 3Q Personal Consumption is estimated to rise +1.9% versus a +2.5% gain in 2Q.
- 3Q GDP Price Index is estimated to rise +1.4% versus a +2.1% gain in 2Q.
- 3Q Core PCE QoQ is estimated to rise +1.4% versus a +2.0% gain in 2Q.
- None of note
- The Fed's Yellen speaking, Japan CPI, German unemployment data, $35B 7Y T-Note auction, (JNPR) investor day, weekly Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index and the weekly EIA natural gas inventory report could also impact trading today.