Business Insider Opening Bell
NYSE via YouTube
That's a good looking group of people.
The world's largest economies told us what their manufacturing industries looked like.  We also got an update from the Federal Reserve.  Facebook exploded higher.  And Business Insider rang the opening bell this morning!
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 13,077, -25.1, -0.1 percent

S&P 500: 1,408, -4.3, -0.3 percent

NASDAQ: 2,981, -8.7, -0.2 percent

And now the top stories:
  • Last night, Markit published the China Flash PMI, a preliminary read on the country's economic activity.  The figure rose to a three-month high of 49.1.  While any number below 50 signals contraction, economists nevertheless applauded the report as another sign that the economy was stabilizing. 

  • The Eurozone also released their Flash PMI and it was ugly.  The composite number fell to a 40-month low of 45.8 in October.  Also, Germany's Ifo business confidence index fell to 100.0, a 2.5 year low.  Goldman Sachs economist Huw Pill thinks it'll be 18 months before we can even think about an end to the euro crisis.

  • US Flash manufacturing PMI came in at 51.3, which signals expansion.  And it was up from 51.1 in September.  However, it was a tad below the 51.5 economists were expecting.

  • The latest report on the U.S. housing market was encouraging.  New home sales jumped 5.7 percent to an annualized rate of 389k.  This was modestly above economists' expectation for 385k.  It's interesting that neither Romney nor Obama have been talking about this. 

  • Speaking of presidential candidates, the world's top economists have become increasingly vocal about who they think would be right or wrong for the economy.  At an event last night, Joseph Stiglitz said that Mitt Romney would be the biggest risk to the economy.  At that same event, Paul Krugman joked that he hoped neither candidate would follow through on any of their proposed cuts.  In an interview with El Economista, Robert Shiller warned that Romney's austerity programs could turn the U.S. into another Europe.

  • At 2:15 PM EST, the Federal Reserve published the statement of its Federal Open Market Committee meeting.  They reiterated that they would keep rates low through at least mid-2015, they would continue Operation Twist until the end of the year, and that they would continue buying mortgage-backed securities.  There were no big surprises, and the markets barely budged.