Bloomberg:
- President Barack Obama’s health overhaul, aiming to add 36 million Americans to the insurance rolls, will worsen a family-doctor shortage, triggering longer waits for office visits and crowded emergency rooms. “This is already a catastrophic crisis,” said Joseph Stubbs, president of the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians, the second-largest doctor’s group in the U.S. “Now we’re talking 30 million more people who will want to see a doctor. The supply of doctors just won’t be there for them.” Underserved areas in the U.S. currently need 16,679 more primary-care physicians to reach a “medically appropriate” target of 1 for every 2,000 residents, U.S. data shows. The health-care overhaul bills before Congress would raise pay for family doctors, increase residency training and forgive school debt to help meet that deficit. Those measures, though, will take years to make a difference, said Stubbs, who also works as an internist in Albany, Georgia. The Massachusetts health-care initiative shows what can go wrong if the primary-care system isn’t fixed simultaneously with the start of universal coverage, said Allan Goroll, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. The average waiting time to see a family-medicine doctor in Boston, a city with 14 teaching hospitals, is 63 days, the most among 15 cities in a 2009 survey by Merritt Hawkins & Associates, a recruiting and research firm in Irving, Texas. People in Los Angeles waited 59 days, while those in Miami saw doctors in 7 days, the survey found. Boston’s longer wait was “driven in part by the health- care reform initiative,” the report said.
- J.C. Penney Co.(JCP), the third-largest U.S. department-store company, jumped the most in three months in New York trading after saying third-quarter earnings exceeded its expectations and raising its annual forecast. The Plano, Texas-based company projected annual profit of as much as $1.08 a share, compared with the 90-cent maximum it previously predicted, according to a statement today. Gross margin, a measure of profitability that indicates the percentage of sales left after the cost of goods sold, widened by 2.1 percentage points in the third quarter, as the company held down inventories and reduced clearance. The company expects the gross margin to expand by as much as 3.9 percentage points in the fourth quarter, helped by lower inventory levels, Chief Financial Officer Robert Cavanaugh said on a conference call. J.C. Penney advanced $2.04, or 6.9 percent, to $31.43 at 11:37 a.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading after rising much as 7.4 percent for the biggest intraday gain since Aug. 7.
- General Electric Co.(GE), the world’s biggest provider of energy equipment and services, will boost research spending to grab more of an estimated $5 billion market to filter and recondition water for utilities and governments. “We think it’s going to be a great business not only in the U.S. but in China,” where much of the country has limited access to water, Chief Executive Jeffrey Immelt told about 100 global customers last night at GE’s management-training center in Crotonville, New York. “The entire Middle East is constrained. So this is a problem that’s shared broadly.”
- Boeing(BA) Sees ‘Good Chance’ for Cargo, Freighter Sales. Boeing Co.(BA), which hasn’t won a freighter order since 2007, expects a rebound in demand next year as economic improvement spurs air shipments and carriers look to replace aging jets they parked during the recession. “There’s a good chance for a boom in 2010 and 2011” in air-freight traffic, Thomas Crabtree, who does cargo forecasts at Boeing, the world’s biggest maker of freighters, said in an interview from Seattle late yesterday. That should translate into “increased sales activity within the next 12 months.”
- North Korea threatened military action near a disputed sea border with South Korea, accusing its neighbor of plotting this week’s naval clash to disrupt the thawing mood on the peninsula. “We will take merciless military measures from this minute to protect our border,” North Korea’s military said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency today. “The South will pay a high price, taking full responsibility for their actions.” The communist country’s rhetoric comes as U.S. President Barack Obama arrived in Tokyo today as part of an eight-day tour of Asia that includes a stop in Seoul next week.
- International Monetary Fund Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn said the global economic recovery will take years and won’t be a one-size-fits-all situation. Asia will lead the recovery, followed by the U.S. and then Europe, he said in Singapore today. Higher joblessness is likely for advanced nations next year, he said.
- Nickel, heading for its worst week in two months, will decline 8 percent by the end of the year as demand weakens, research group CRU said. “The price reflects the reappearance of demand weakness in the market, both in the western world and in Asia,” Maartje Collignon, an analyst at CRU in London, said by phone. “People are concerned that China might export some of the nickel surpluses they have in the country now,” Collignon said. As much as 50,000 tons of the nation’s estimated 140,000 tons in stockpiles could be exported, she said. Prices may average $16,000 a ton in the first half of next year before rising “slightly” in the second half as demand from the steel industry strengthens, Collignon said. Supply will continue to outpace demand next year, she said.
- UBS AG, Switzerland’s biggest bank, plans to add exchange-traded notes linked to stocks, bonds and commodities after assets tied to earlier products more than doubled this year, a company executive said. “In 2010, we’re planning on launching anywhere from five to 10 new ETNs,” Christopher Yeagley, the head of structured- equity products, said by telephone from New York yesterday. “They won’t necessarily be in commodities, but that is one area we are looking at,” along with stocks and bonds, he said.
- The Federal Reserve’s policy of keeping interest rates near zero is fueling a wave of speculative capital that may cause the next global crisis, Hong Kong’s leader said. “I’m scared and leaders should look out,” said Donald Tsang, chief executive of the city, said in Singapore today. “America is doing exactly what Japan did last time,” he said, adding that Japan’s zero interest rate policy contributed to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and U.S. mortgage meltdown.
Wall Street Journal:
- Cisco Systems Inc. (CSCO) shareholders narrowly approved a "say-on-pay" resolution giving them more of a voice on executive compensation, according to the fund that issued the proposal.
- The Federal Housing Administration's capital reserves have fallen to razor-thin levels, increasing the likelihood the agency will eventually require a taxpayer bailout, and adding fuel to the debate about how much support the U.S. should provide to the mortgage market.The FHA has said for months that its reserves for unexpected loan losses would fall short of the required 2% level by this fall. But an audit of the FHA released Thursday showed that reserves have been depleted much faster than the agency and analysts had expected. The FHA's capital-reserve fund fell to $3.6 billion as of Sept. 30, down 72% from a year earlier, leaving reserves at just 0.53% of the $685 billion in total loans insured by the FHA.
MarketWatch.com:
- As the year's still-tepid number of initial public offerings topped 2008's count, the market debuts of two value-focused retailers drew warm receptions Friday, as did commentary from other retailers, lifting hopes for the holiday shopping season. "The retailers who've done successful IPOs all have had a bit of a recessionary angle," said Nick Einhorn, a research analyst at Renaissance Capital LLC, pointing to Dollar General Corp. (DG), rue21 Inc. (RUE) and the Vitamin Shoppe Inc. (VSI), which went public earlier in the month, as examples.
- "Last week's employment report seems to have changed sentiment in Washington," said Alec Phillips, an economist for Goldman Sachs, in a research note that's getting some attention in the fixed-income markets. "Momentum behind additional fiscal support for the economy appears to be building." The White House is hearing criticism from the right and the left that the president ought to focus more on employment, and less on other priorities, such as health-care reform, global warming, or Afghanistan. This criticism ignores the fact that a huge federal bureaucracy and a 535-member Congress can do more than one thing at a time, but it does remind the Democratic leadership that its political future is riding almost exclusively on the state of the economy. Democrats are carefully testing the waters for another stimulus bill targeted specifically at job creation. But it probably won't be called a "stimulus."
CNBC:
- A top economic adviser to President Obama warned on Friday that the urgency for changing the rules of the road for financial firms may be waning and urged Congress to act while the general public is focused on banking issues.
- The oil market is well supplied, with inventories at record levels globally, and the market continues "to be a bit soft," but prices are getting a big boost from the dollar's fall, Exxon Mobil(XOM) CEO and Chairman Rex Tillerson told CNBC Friday. "Inventory levels are at historic highs levels — especially in the U.S.," Tillerson said. But "a foreign exchange effect" is keeping prices higher, despite the amount of oil available. "If you put the price of oil, which is priced in dollars around the world, and if you look at what some of the currency effects are with the weak dollar — in our view that is contributing about $20-25 a barrel to the price," he said. The weakness in the dollar is one of the key reasons for this year's move higher in commodities, analysts told Reuters. Analysts told CNBC higher oil prices and a weaker dollar could affect the global economy's fragile recovery.
The Business Insider:
Washington Post:
- In 1982, a Pakistani military C-130 left the western Chinese city of Urumqi with a highly unusual cargo: enough weapons-grade uranium for two atomic bombs, according to accounts written by the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and provided to The Washington Post. The uranium transfer in five stainless-steel boxes was part of a broad-ranging, secret nuclear deal approved years earlier by Mao Zedong and Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto that culminated in an exceptional, deliberate act of proliferation by a nuclear power, according to the accounts by Khan, who is under house arrest in Pakistan. U.S. officials say they have known about the transfer for decades and once privately confronted the Chinese -- who denied it -- but have never raised the issue in public or sought to impose direct sanctions on China for it.
Bespoke:
- Bank and Broker Default Risk Graph.
FINalternatives:
- ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’: Insider Trading and The Lessons of Galleon.
CFO Magazine:
Rassmussen:
- Nearly half the nation’s voters still believe that global warming is caused primarily by long term planetary trends, not human activity. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 47% of voters blame global warming on planetary trends, while 37% of voters take the opposite view and blame human activity.
Politico:
- Sen. Chris Dodd’s decision to hang on to the Banking Committee gavel and become the public face for Wall Street reform is beginning to look like a political liability. Earlier this year, Dodd went against the advice of his top advisers, who recommended he take the Health committee chairmanship while the health care debate was hot. But he wanted to take charge of the biggest overhaul of financial rules since the Great Depression. The latest Connecticut polls show that decision may be backfiring. A Quinnipiac poll released Thursday showed Dodd is still fighting for his political life, losing by 11 points to his top Republican challenger, former Rep. Rob Simmons, while trailing a handful of other GOP contenders in head to head matchups.
- Republicans are irate over the move to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York, perhaps within walking distance of Ground Zero. Yet Democrats — including some from New York City — are comfortable with the idea that the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks will ultimately be judged by a jury of New Yorkers. Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), a Long Island congressman on the homeland security committee, told POLITICO on Friday morning that terrorists should not be afforded the same rights to trials that Americans enjoy. King said President Barack Obama is “caving into political correctness and the left wing base of his political party.” Lower Manhattan, where many presume the case will be heard, could turn into a “circus,” he said. “I am really disgusted by it,” King told POLITICO Friday morning. “To me, it’s truly an insult to the memory of those killed on 9/11.”
BP:
- BP, Verenium to Invest $400 Millino in Biofuels Plant. (video)
Detroit News:
- Ford Motor Co.'s(F) big bet on its new line of EcoBoost engines appears to be paying off. Demand for the engines, which promise better mileage while delivering more power, has taken off since they debuted last summer -- boosting vehicle sales, luring new customers and raising average transaction prices by thousands of dollars.
Reuters:
- A weekly measure of future U.S. economic growth slipped to an 8-week low, sending its yearly growth rate further off record levels reached seven weeks ago, a research group said on Friday. The Economic Cycle Research Institute, a New York-based independent forecasting group, said its Weekly Leading Index edged down to 127.3 in the week to Nov. 6, from a downwardly revised 128.7 the previous week, which the group originally
reported as 128.8. The index's yearly growth rate fell to a seven-week low of 25.3 percent from 26.2 percent last week, which was revised lower from an original 26.3 percent. ECRI has recently projected that the recovery will be the fastest since the early 1980s, and said the current report is in step with that forecast. "For four straight weeks WLI growth has eased from a record high, but still remains consistent with a further near-term acceleration in U.S. economic growth," said ECRI Managing Director Lakshman Achuthan.
Financial Times:
Frankfurter Rundschau:
- Germany will block an accord that would allow US security agencies to view European bank-transfer data as part of efforts to fight terrorism.
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