Quick Overview

• Foreign investors slashed their holdings of US securities by a record amount as the credit squeeze intensified, according to the latest Treasury figures. Foreign investors sold $34.9 billion of U.S. securities in August while U.S. investors bought $34.5 billion of foreign securities. Overall $163 billion left the U.S. in August.
  
  

• U.S. industrial production was up 0.1% in September
  

• YoY consumer prices in the U.K. rose 1.8%.
  

• YoY consumer prices in the Euro area rose 2.1%.
  

• Canada met and kept its rate unchanged at 4.5%
  

• Manufacturing sales in Canada fell 1.7% in August
  

• Japan's housing starts fell 43% in August. The government began requiring stricter inspections to protect new homes from earthquake damage.
  

• Southern California home sales fell in September to the lowest level in two decades. It was the slowest month since the firm began keeping records in 1988, DataQuick said. The previous low was in February 1995 when 12,459 homes sold.
  

• Intel profits rose 43 %, beating estimates.
  
  

• There's been another round of new record highs for crude oil on fears of an escalating conflict between Turkey and Kurds in northern Iraq.