Quick Overview

• Financial Times: European Union finance ministers are examining ways of coordinating recapitalizations of financial institutions.

• Dexia is back at bailout trough! Its shares hit an all-time low despite a statement of support from the French and Belgian finance ministers. The question now becomes whether this means taxpayers will be called on to take losses so that bondholders can be spared.

• The Fed is ready to take further steps to help an economy that is "close to faltering," Fed chairman Ben Bernanke said in his bleakest assessment yet of the fragile U.S. recovery.

• Italy's bonds were downgraded by Moody's to A2 from Aa2

• The ISM manufacturing index  rose to 51.6% from a 50.6% reading in August.

• U.S. construction projects rose 1.4% in August

• Bloomberg: Take-home pay, adjusted for prices, fell 0.3 percent in August, the third decrease in five months, and personal income dropped for the first time in two years, the Commerce Department reported last week. The declines followed news from the Census Bureau that median household income in 2010 fell to $49,445, the lowest in more than a decade, and the poverty rate jumped to 15.1 percent, a 17-year high.

• Chrysler reported a 27% jump in September U.S. sales to 127,334 vehicles.
• GM reported a 19.8% jump in September U.S. sales to 207,145 Vehicles.

• YoY Macau gambling revenue rose 39% last month.

• Yum reported its third-quarter profit rose to 80 cents a share from 74 cents.

• Investor reaction to Apple’s latest phone – drop the stock by 3.8%.