Moody’s Offers Upbeat View On Corporate Defaults (WSJ)
Lambasted alongside other ratings firms for being too sanguine on subprime mortgages and other risky assets, Moody’s is expected to release a report Thursday predicting that most companies with the lowest credit ratings should survive the fallout from European debt woes or other market problems. These companies, which form a list Moody’s once dubbed the “Bottom Rung,” used booming credit markets over the past 2½ years to refinance debt and extend due dates on obligations to 2014 and beyond. That should keep them safe if borrowing costs increase and capital becomes scarce, Moody’s said. While Moody’s expects debt defaults to rise some in the next year amid shakier economic conditions, “it’s not the end of the world, it’s not falling off the cliff, it’s not zombie land,” said David Keisman, a Moody’s senior vice president and the report’s author.

UBS Trader Faces New Charge (WSJ)
In court Thursday, the prosecutor said Mr. Adoboli faced an additional charge, alleging that his fraudulent trading at the Swiss banking giant dated back to Oct. 1, 2008 and continued through the end of 2010. Previously, charges of fraud against Mr. Adoboli dated back to January 2011. A separate false-accounting charge against Mr. Adobli dated to 2008.

Soros Cracks Top Forbes’ 10 Richest Americans With $22 Billion (FINalternatives)
Also in the club, among others: John Paulson ($15.5 billion), Michael Dell ($15 billion), Carl Icahn ($13 billion), Ron Perelman ($12 billion), Jim Simons ($10.6 billion), Steve Cohen ($8.3 billion), Ray Dalio ($6.6 billion), David Tepper ($5 billion).

Fed Launches New Stimulus (WSJ)
“It may help a little bit at the edges,” said James Hamilton, a University of California San Diego professor who has been studying the impact of the Fed’s policies, but he added that “nobody should have illusions that the policies will get the economy jumping again.”

Salt Lake airplane passenger carried knife on board, made threats, police say (DN)
Shortly after taking his seat on a Delta Air Lines flight from Salt Lake City to Las Vegas on Sunday, David Alan Anderson, 60, began elbowing the passenger next to him to “claim” the armrest, according to a federal complaint. He then put his foot on the passenger’s leg. “Sir, you are going to have to move over,” the passenger told him. About five minutes later, the passenger saw Anderson staring at him. He then said to the passenger, “If I had a knife, I would slit your throat,” the complaint states…during a consensual search of his bag, police found a Gerber folding knife with a 3 ½-inch blade. Continue reading »