- Wall Street has woken up to the idea that the foreclosure crisis could force banks to modify huge amounts of loans, and stalled evictions could hamper payments to bondholders. The stock market has begun to act accordingly. [WSJ]
- On a related note, according to the credit-default-swaps market, Bank of America is no longer an investment-grade borrower. This might have something to do with the banking giant’s 2008 acquisition of housing-crisis posterchild and all-around basket case Countrywide Financial. [Bloomberg]
- Ben “Bernankers” Bernanke will speak about the economy today, and markets around the world wait with baited breath to see if he will fire up his magical economy-saving quantitative easing machine. [AP]
- General Electric, which makes lightbulbs and is at least partly responsible for daily on-air appearances by Larry Kudlow, Jim Cramer and Michelle Caruso-Cabrera, announced a 29 percent year-over-year increase in third-quarter profit from continuing operations, beating Wall Street expectations. [NYT]
- Neither you, nor me, nor anyone else can stop the price of gold from rocketing higher. Gold help us all. [Reuters]
mtaylor@observer.com
Twitter: @mbrookstaylor
