Markets: Asian bourses came under pressure ahead of China's leadership meeting, the most anticipated political event of the year for the world's second-largest economy. (Financial Times)
SAC Capital, the hedge fund run by Steven Cohen, pleaded guilty to insider trading and agreed to pay $1.8bn in fines in one of the biggest criminal cases against a hedge fund, but a cloud remains over the trading impresario as investigators continue to probe his trades, people familiar with the matter said. The hedge fund agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and four counts of securities fraud and to close to outside investors, according to the US attorney's office in Manhattan, which initially charged the firm in July. The plea agreement requires court approval. (Financial Times -- with whack-a-mole style graphic)Cohen's personal fortune is still big enough to keep him important on Wall Street though. (Reuters)
"China needs to sustain economic growth of 7.2 percent to ensure a stable job market, Premier Li Keqiang said in remarks published on Monday, one of the few times a top official has stated the minimum level of growth needed for employment." (Reuters)
BlackBerry called off its sale plans and removed its chief executive on Monday sending the share price of the one-time market leader to its lowest in a decade. A consortium of investors led by Fairfax Financial, BlackBerry's largest shareholder, will invest an additional $1bn in the Canadian group instead of confirming a $4.7bn takeover proposal it outlined six weeks ago. The deadline for a firm bid expired on Monday. A group working on a competing offer received no warning of the decision, according to a person familiar with the group. (Financial Times)
Twitter sharply increased the price range of its initial public offering by 25 per cent yesterday in response to huge investor demand, putting it on course to secure a valuation of over $17bn at its stock market debut later this week. Shares in the microblogging network will now be offered for between $23 and $25. (Financial Times)
Lael Brainard, the top US Treasury official on international economic policy who helped steer the Obama administration's response to the eurozone crisis, is stepping down from her post at the end of the week, a Treasury official said on Monday night. Ms Brainard is considered a frontrunner for a Federal Reserve governor post. (Financial Times)
Johnson & Johnson is to pay more than $2.2bn in fines to US federal and state authorities for kickbacks and promotion of its medicines for diseases beyond their approved uses over more than a decade. (Financial Times)
The Co-op warned it would take up to five years to fix its troubled banking arm. It is handing 70 per cent of the bank to a group of bondholders, about half of which will go to hedge funds, in exchange for their debt and a new £125m cash injection. Other bondholders, including a group of thousands of retail investors, will be forced to take losses of up to 40-50 per cent as they trade in existing bonds for new debt. The ownership restructuring came alongside a plan to close 50 bank branches – 15 per cent of its 324-strong network – and cut a "significant" number of jobs. (Financial Times)
Prospects for the planned merger of US Airways and American Airlines' parent company brightened considerably after Eric Holder, the US attorney-general, said his department hoped to resolve its objections to the deal without a trial. (Financial Times)
Pimco loses biggest fund crown to Vanguard: While Vanguard now has $250bn under management, Mr Gross's flagship fund fell to $248bn in assets at the end of October, after another month of withdrawals. Investors asked for $4.4bn back last month, taking the outflows for 2013 so far to $33.2bn. (Financial Times)
"Argentina's largest media company offered on Monday to break itself up into six separate business units, the latest effort by Grupo Clarín to prevent the government from dismantling it under a media law the country's top court upheld last week." (WSJ)
"Kellogg said Monday that it will cut about 2,000 jobs, or 7% of its global workforce, over the next four years as part of a billion-dollar cost-cutting plan." (WSJ)
"RBA Says Aussie 'uncomfortably high': Australia's central bank left its benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record low and said a lower currency will be needed to achieve balanced growth." (Bloomberg)
COMMENTS & CURIOS
China plans to prove the sceptics wrong (Financial Times Rachman)
While it's central banker leads push to overhaul economy (WSJ)
And it deals with desperate 'terrorists' (WSJ)
'Everything Store' nothing short of unbalanced, says Bezos wife (Financial Times)
Britain's politicians must offer realism not radicalism (Financial Times)
Fresh violence as Bangladesh shutdown raises tensions (Financial Times)
OVERNIGHT MARKETS
Asian markets
Nikkei 225 up +5.92 (+0.04%) at 14,207
Topix down -1.32 (-0.11%) at 1,182
Hang Seng down -148.82 (-0.64%) at 23,041
US markets
S&P 500 up +6.29 (+0.36%) at 1,768
DJIA up +23.57 (+0.15%) at 15,639
Nasdaq up +14.55 (+0.37%) at 3,937
European markets
Eurofirst 300 up +4.11 (+0.32%) at 1,294
FTSE100 up +28.88 (+0.43%) at 6,764
CAC 40 up +15.40 (+0.36%) at 4,289
Dax up +29.40 (+0.33%) at 9,037
Currencies
€/$ 1.35 (1.35)
$/¥ 98.43 (98.60)
£/$ 1.60 (1.60)
Commodities ($)
Brent Crude (ICE) up +0.09 at 106.32
Light Crude (Nymex) down -0.03 at 94.59
100 Oz Gold (Comex) unchanged 0.00 at 1,315
Copper (Comex) up +0.01 at 3.26
10-year government bond yields (%)
US 2.60%
UK 2.67%
Germany 1.68%
CDS (closing levels)
Markit iTraxx SovX Western Europe -1.32bps at 68.4bp
Markit iTraxx Europe -1.1bps at 83.44bp
Markit iTraxx Xover -3.6bps at 342.79bp
Sources: FT, Bloomberg, Markit
