The news has pulled down futures and oil. The dollar has gained strength on the news as well.

Within a weeks time the indices fell nearly 20%. Doubt it happens again.

Bloomberg on Koch .

Full Story.

US rig counts crashing. Down -1 this week. Up 20% YoY.

Carnage

Currencies 

Commodities 

Trow dem mellons awhey mon…(SIC; on the whole sentence)

After Yahoo fired CEO Carol Bartz, cofounder Jerry Yang told employees that the company had not begun a sales process.

Since then, reports here and elsewhere have suggested that is a bunch of malarkey and that Yahoo’s board is very much putting the company up for sale.

Full story here

Should we have expected anything less ?

From the same group that brings you Standard and Poor’s…

New Pricing for Brent

After a decline of 17 rigs over the previous 2 weeks, this week’s report shows an increase of 27.

Updated Rig Count

OECD inventories fall below 5-year average for first time since 2008

Who needs economic growth?

Dallas area home improvement store sees half a million in sales go poof with the crack of Josh Hamilton’s bat:

What could possibly go wrong?

Upgrades

MHP – McGraw-Hill upgraded to Buy at Argus

INXN – InterXion initiated with a Buy at Stifel Nicolaus

ACI – Arch Coal upgraded to Buy from Hold at Deutsche Bank

NOG – Northern Oil & Gas initiated with a Market Perform at BMO Capital

GNOM – Complete Genomics initiated with an Outperform at Mizuho

ONXX – Onyx Pharma upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman

SPIL – Siliconware Precision upgraded to Buy from Underperform at BofA/Merrill

ARX – Aeroflex added to Conviction Buy List at Goldman

CBRL – Cracker Barrel upgraded to Outperform from Market Perform at Raymond James

HMIN – Home Inns initiated with an Outperform at William Blair

KOG – Kodiak Oil & Gas initiated with a Outperform at Oppenheimer

GIII – G-III Apparel upgraded to Buy at Stifel Nicolaus

NCR – NCR Corp initiated with a Outperform at Oppenheimer

FMBI – First Midwest Banc upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Sterne Agee

AMAT – Applied Materials upgraded to Outperform at Oppenheimer

HSNI – HSN initiated with a Buy at Wunderlich

CL – Colgate-Palmolive upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill

XEC – Cimarex initiated with a Perform at Oppenheimer

Downgrades

ILMN – Illumina downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Leerink Swan

SMG – Scotts Miracle-Gro downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

CENT – Central Garden downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Suntrust

CAG – ConAgra downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

EL – Estee Lauder upgraded to Buy from Neutral at BofA/Merrill

PG – Procter & Gamble downgraded to Neutral from Buy at BofA/Merrill

LNKD – LinkedIn initiated with a Hold at Argus

UTHR – United Therapeutics downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Goldman

DOLE – Dole Food upgraded to Overweight from Neutral at JP Morgan

LIFE – Life Technologies downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform at Leerink Swann

GPC – Genuine Parts downgraded to Underperform from Buy at BofA/Merrill

Germany may be getting ready to give up on Greece.

After almost two years of fighting to contain the region’s debt crisis and providing the biggest share of three European bailouts, Chancellor Angela Merkel is laying the ground for what markets say is almost a sure thing: a Greek default.

“It feels like Germany is preparing itself for a debt default,” Jacques Cailloux, chief European economist at Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc in London, said in an interview. “Fatigue is setting in. Germany could be a first mover or other countries could be preparing too.”

Officials in Merkel’s government are debating how to shore up German banks in the event that Greece fails to meet the budget-cutting terms of its aid package and is unable to get a bailout-loan payment, three coalition officials said Sept. 9. The move capped a week of escalating German threats that Greece won’t get the money unless it meets fiscal targets and investors raising bets on a default.

Ring-fencing their banks and a hardening of rescue terms risk isolating Germany and unnerving global policy makers already fretting that the region’s political tussles are roiling markets and threatening growth. Underscoring the tone of weekend talks of Group of Seven finance chiefs, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told Bloomberg Television that European authorities must “demonstrate they have enough political will” to end the crisis.
Credit Risks

European bank credit risk surged last week to an all-time high and the euro fell by the most against the dollar in a year. Investors have doubts whether Greece, whose two-year notes now yield 57 percent, will implement austerity moves fast enough to get a sixth payment from last year’s 110 billion-euro ($151 billion) bailout.

The Greek government’s top priority is “to save the country from bankruptcy,” Prime Minister George Papandreou said in a Sept. 10 speech in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. “We will remain in the euro” and this “means difficult decisions,” he said.

More evidence of rifts at the heart of policy making was exposed with the unexpected Sept. 9 announcement that Juergen Stark, a German, will quit the European Central Bank’s executive board over his opposition to the ECB’s purchases of bonds from debt-laden countries.

“Stark’s departure could be seen by financial markets as another indication of growing disenchantment in Germany towards the euro,” said Julian Callow, chief European economist at Barclays Capital in London. “This could complicate Germany’s involvement in additional bailout programs.”
Marseille Gathering

At the G-7 gathering in the French port of Marseille, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet and European Union Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn said they knew nothing about the talk in Germany of the so-called Plan B to protect banks. French officials said they weren’t working on a parallel proposal and Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer said his country’s banks have the capital to withstand a Greek default.

BNP Paribas (BNP) SA, Societe Generale (GLE) SA and Credit Agricole SA (ACA), France’s largest banks by market value, may have their credit ratings cut by Moody’s Investors Service as soon as this week because of their Greek holdings, two people with knowledge of the matter said on Sept. 10.

Moody’s said in June that the three banks were placed on review to examine “the potential for inconsistency between the impact of a possible Greek default or restructuring,” and the companies’ current rating levels.

Much more on this story at Bloomberg

Number 4 is most interesting and may take some by surprise down the road….