Today's Headlines

Bloomberg: 

• Islamic State Seizes Half of Kobani in New Push, Group Says. Islamic State militants pushed deeper into the Syrian town of Kobani today, seizing strategic buildings from their Kurdish defenders, according to a human rights group documenting the conflict. The insurgents now control almost half of the town on the frontier with NATO-member Turkey, including an area housing administrative and security buildings, the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a statement, citing a witness. Militants are advancing along Street 48, which divides eastern and western parts of the mainly Kurdish town, and were also at Kobani’s southern entrance, it said. 
• Ebola’s Next Stop May Be Ivory Coast as WHO Prepares Neighbors. Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali and Senegal top a list of 13 countries the World Health Organization is urging to be prepared for cases of the Ebola virus to ensure the epidemic doesn’t spread further. The WHO is concluding a three-day meeting in the Republic of Congo today with a goal of developing a checklist African countries should use to ensure they’re prepared. Representatives from the the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and African Development Bank were there as well.
• Spanish Hospital Monitors 13 People for Risk of Ebola. A Madrid hospital expanded its monitoring of people who may be at risk of contracting Ebola from an infected woman and the U.K. will screen arriving passengers as Europe stepped up its watch on the deadly virus. Thirteen people are under observation in Madrid, including the husband of 44-year-old nursing assistant Teresa Romero, who became infected after caring for two missionaries with Ebola, the La Paz-Carlos III hospital said last night in an e-mailed statement. None are showing symptoms. Romero’s condition is “serious but stable,” the hospital said.
• Ruble Rout Pounding Russia’s Retailers as Prices Soar. The generally upbeat story -- and current hardship -- of Russia’s middle class since the end of the Cold War can be partly told through Dixy Group. Founded in 1992 as a wholesaler in St. Petersburg, it has more than 1,800 stores selling once-exotic products like Danone yogurt and Nestle ice cream. Today, just like the urban consumers it serves, Dixy must grapple with the plunging ruble, which makes it harder to keep shelves stocked with popular brands at prices shoppers expect. Servicing the company’s loans has also gotten more expensive, Rybasov said, as the Russian central bank raises interest rates. Life is harder for companies that have significant foreign debt, since revenues in rubles don’t fetch as many dollars or euros as they did a few months ago. The ruble is trading at about 40 to the dollar amid the continuing Ukraine conflict, a record low that’s prompted the central bank to spend more than $3 billion to shore up its value just this month. 
• Ukraine Repels Rebel Attack on Airport as Truce Wobbles. Ukrainian forces repelled another attack by pro-Russian separatists on Donetsk Airport in far-eastern Ukraine early today as fighting undermines a month-old truce. The attack was one of 35 rebel assaults on government positions in the past 24 hours, the military press center in Kiev said on Facebook. Separatists said they control most of the airport. Three civilians were killed and five were injured in Donetsk, military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said today. Seven soldiers were wounded in fighting overnight, he said.
• Here’s a Clear Sign China Will Set a Lower Growth Target. China’s main government-backed research organization just gave one of the strongest signs yet that leaders will eschew broad stimulus to meet this year’s economic-growth target and plan a lower goal in 2015. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences today forecast a 7 percent expansion next year, according to the state-run Shanghai Securities News.The Beijing-based institution estimates growth of 7.3 percent this year, the newspaper reported on its website, lower than its 7.5 percent projection in December, which was also the government’s 2014 target rate.
• Hong Kong Protesters Rally Anew as Government Quits Talks. (video) Hong Kong pro-democracy protest leaders called on supporters to flood the city’s streets tonight to pressure the government after talks aimed at ending the two-week standoff were suspended. Student leader Joshua Wong today urged protesters to gather at 7:30 p.m. near the government’s main office complex in Admiralty to show that demonstrations still have the support to continue their occupation of key city roads. The benchmark stock index and the Hong Kong dollar fell today. 
• China Coal Tariffs Add to Pressure on Producers in Australia. China, the world’s biggest coal consumer, is piling on the pain for Australian producers by ratcheting up import barriers.
• Finland Loses Top Rating as S&P Cuts to AA+ on Weak Economy. Finland lost its top debt grade at Standard & Poor’s as its sluggish economy and aging population complicate the government’s efforts to balance its budget and reduce debt.
• European Stocks Drop, Posting Worst Week Since May 2012. (video) European stocks fell, completing their biggest weekly drop since May 2012, amid concern the region’s central bank will face obstacles in its measures to revive the region’s economy. The Stoxx 600 dropped 1.6 percent to 321.62 at the close, its lowest level since Feb. 5, after paring a retreat of as much as 1.9 percent. The gauge lost 4.1 percent this week as the International Monetary Fund cut its global-growth forecasts and German industrial output shrank the most since 2009. “The selloff has been a long time coming,” Gerard Lane, a strategist at Shore Capital Group Ltd., said by phone from Liverpool, England. “Reality is hitting home for investors. Weak domestic economic growth in Europe will probably be long lasting. The ECB doesn’t know what to do. And if they knew what to do, Germany wouldn’t let them do it.” 
• Commodities Drop Near 5-Year Low on Growth, Glut Concerns. Commodities traded near the lowest since 2009 as oil extended a slide into a bear market amid signs of ample supplies, while industrial metals dropped on concern that slowing growth from Europe to China will sap demand. The Bloomberg Commodity Index lost as much as 0.8 percent to 117.83, near a five-year low of 117.69 reached Oct. 3. The gauge fell the previous five weeks in the longest run of losses since April last year. It slid 12 percent last quarter, the most since 2008, on rising supplies of everything from oil to corn and as a stronger dollar made raw materials priced in greenbacks more expensive in terms of other monies.
• Microchip(MCHP) Falls on China Demand; Chip Stocks Tumble. Microchip Technology Inc. tumbled the most in almost 14 years and shares of rival chipmakers fell after the company said product orders missed its forecast, hurt by falling demand in China. Microchip’s announcement triggered a sell-off in semiconductor stocks today, putting the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index on course for its worst one-day decline since 2011. Microchip fell as much as 14 percent and was trading at $39.95 as of 11:52 a.m. in New York. Peers such as Freescale Semiconductor Ltd. (FSL) also dropped more than 10 percent.
• Iran Matches Saudi Oil Discounts in Bear Market for Crude. Iran will sell its oil to Asia in November at the biggest discount in almost six years, matching cuts by Saudi Arabia as global crude benchmarks slide deeper into a bear market. State-run National Iranian Oil Co. cut official selling prices of its crude to buyers in Asia for November, two people with knowledge of the pricing decision said yesterday. The decrease came a week after Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, reduced the price of Arab Light crude for Asia to the lowest since December 2008. Brent crude, the international benchmark, fell to the lowest in almost four years today.

MarketWatch.com: 

• Investor who predicted the subprime crisis says stocks will fall 10%-plus.

ZeroHedge: 

• Crude Rises On News ISIS Has Entered One Of Baghdad's Suburbs. (graph)
• Martin Armstrong Warns "A Mad Max Event Is Possible".
• "Financial Markets Are Artificially Priced: What Do You Do?" - Bill Gross' First Janus Capital Letter.
• Ebola Pandemic Update: Probable Cases In Brazil And Paris, 7 More Isolated In Spain, WHO Warning.
• High-Beta Is Getting Hammered, VIX Tops 22 - Highest Since Dec 2012. (graph)
• After Abenomics Failed In Japan, It Is About To Be Tried In Europe.
• Where The US Is Importing All The "Evil" Deflation From, In One Chart. (graph)

Business Insider:

• We're Now At The Threshold Of A Notorious Bubble Indicator. (graph)
• ISIS May Soon Overrun Iraq's Anbar Province.
• An Election In A Tiny English Town Is An Ominous Sign That Europe Is Coming Apart.

AP:

• UN warns of massacre if militants take Syrian town. The new U.N. envoy to Syria said Friday that at least 500 civilians remain trapped in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani besieged by the Islamic State group, warning that they were likely to be "massacred" if it falls to the extremists.

Reuters:

• German gov't to cut its own economic growth forecasts - sources. The German government will cut its economic growth forecasts for 2014 and 2015 next week, according to two sources in the ruling coalition, one of whom said the growth outlook for both years would be cut to about 1.25 percent. "This is the approximate number," said one of the sources. The second source said there would be a "sharp cut" in the twice-yearly official projection, last made in April, of 1.8 percent growth for this year and 2.0 percent for next year.

MNI:

• ECB's Hansson Says Premature to Put New Easing on the Table. "So much is in the pipeline now that it is premature to be putting further measures on the table already," ECB Governing Council member Ardo Hansson says in Washington.