Draghi turns tables on eurozone leaders (FT)
Mario Draghi has turned the tables on eurozone leaders by demanding they implement urgently measures to combat the escalating debt crisis, and warned of massive economic and social costs if instead the European Central Bank’s credibility was put at stake. In an uncompromising message, the new ECB president said “robust” economic governance of the eurozone was essential for financial stability and criticised the delay in deploying the European Union’s bail-out fund, the European Financial Stability Facility – originally launched 18 months ago.

ECB Backs $27 Billion Weekly Limit on Government Bond Purchases, FAZ Says (Bloomberg)
European Central Bank governing council members have agreed on a 20 billion-euro ($27 billion) weekly upper limit for sovereign debt purchases as resistance among members grows, the German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. The ECB council meets every other week to decide on an upper limit for bond purchases used to stem rising yields as the European debt crisis widens, the newspaper reported, without saying where it obtained the information. Members met again late yesterday to discuss lowering the level, FAZ said.

European Rift on Bank’s Role in Debt Relief (NYT)
Only the fiercely conservative stewards of the European Central Bank have the firepower to intervene aggressively in the markets with essentially unlimited resources. But the bank itself, and its most important member state, Germany, have steadfastly resisted letting it take up the mantle of lender of last resort. European politicians and analysts say that unbending stance now threatens the survival of the euro and the broader integration of Europe itself.

Fund Transfers Are Focus of MF Global Probe (WSJ)
Regulators have unearthed new details indicating MF Global Holdings Ltd. shifted hundreds of millions of dollars in customer funds to its own brokerage accounts in the days before its bankruptcy filing, according to people familiar with the matter. Such moves could violate regulations stipulating that commodities brokers can’t mix customer funds with brokerage funds. Brokerage funds often are used to back proprietary trading positions. According to MF Global’s internal records, the transactions were as large as hundreds of millions of dollars at a time, these people said.

Gillian Tett: Greek bond losses put role of CDS in doubt (FT)
These days, it is becoming less clear whether those sovereign CDS contracts really offer effective “insurance” against default. And that in turn raises a more unnerving question: if the exposures of the large European banks were measured in gross, not net, terms, just how much more vulnerable might they be to sovereign shocks? Or, to put it another way, could the problems now hanging over eurozone banks and bond markets be about to get worse, due to the state of the sovereign CDS sector?

Protester Brandon Watts, who was first to pitch a tent at Zuccotti Park, is now the bloody face of ‘Day of Action’ (NYDN)
Soon after protesters started pitching tents, a gal pal of Watts’ told the New York Times Magazine he lost his virginity at the encampment. “Brandon lost his virginity today — not to me,” Core Jones, 20, told the magazine on Oct. 23. “I don’t know who the girl is. But I want to have a party for him.” On Thursday, Watts stood atop a wall inside Zuccotti Park and tossed objects — including a AAA battery — at cops standing outside the barricade along Liberty St., police said. Suddenly, the 6-foot-1, 160-pound Watts charged the officers and snatched a hat off the head of a deputy inspector, cops said. Cops caught him as he ran back into the park, but he began to fight back, police said. He was wrestled to the ground and busted his head on the concrete, causing a gash to gush blood down his face. Continue reading »

Thousands Mass Near Wall Street To Start Day Of Protests (WSJ)
Thousands of people have gathered near the former home of Occupy Wall Street in Lower Manhattan to start a citywide day of demonstrations to mark the movement’s two-month anniversary, blocking streets and sidewalks and facing an army of police in riot gear and on horseback. The plan is to march on Wall Street from the area around Zuccotti Park, the site until Tuesday’s eviction of the protest encampment, where activists plan to disrupt the start of the work day. So far, after more than 60 days of protest activity nearby, a heavy police presence and a warren of barricades have kept protesters from holding serious protests on Wall Street itself. At 7:40 a.m., however, a group of hundreds began to stream down Cedar Street chanting “Shut down Wall Street.” The group turned onto Nassau Street and headed to Wall Street. Police used motorcycles and other vehicles to block the march’s progress on Nassau Street, where a mass of demonstrators chanted “We are the 99%.” Elsewhere, police on horseback worked to control the crowd. Police dressed in riot gear have blocked Wall Street at the corner of Hanover Street, where a group of people shouting “Wall Street’s closed” blocked the barricade. “I’m hoping they see that they are being held accountable to the 99%,” said Katie Ferrari, 23 years old, who works as an artist and graphic designer.

Wall Street Protesters March on NY Stock Exchange (Reuters)
“I feel like this is a beautiful moment to take back our streets, especially after the eviction. We need to prove we can exist anywhere. It’s gone beyond a single neighborhood, it’s really an idea,” said Rachel Falcone, 27, from Brooklyn…Megyn Norbut, 23, from Brooklyn, said she holds down three jobs and joined the protest on Thursday “because we got kicked out of Zuccotti and we need to show that this is a mental and spiritual movement not a physical movement. It’s not about the park,” Norbut said.

Protest Has Spawned Counter-Protest (@elliottjustin via Daily Intel)

Merkel Tells Monti To Fix Italy (WSJ)
“You have taken office at a difficult time for your country and for the euro zone in general, and there are many hopes and expectations set on you,” she wrote in the congratulatory letter to Mr. Monti, who named his new government Wednesday. “It would behoove you and your government to decide upon and implement decisive and significant reforms.”

Subpoenas Issued in MF Global Probe (WSJ)
Federal prosecutors in Chicago and New York have issued subpoenas in the probe of the collapse of MF Global Holdings Ltd., people familiar with the case said, a sign of an intensifying Justice Department criminal investigation as authorities try to track down about $600 million in client funds.

SocGen Cuts To Hit Investment Bank (WSJ)
SocGen plans to make the bulk of planned staff cuts at its corporate and investment bank, but its disposal of assets won’t involve assets in Asia. Jacques Ripoll, Société Générale’s head of global investment management and services, said the “main changes” would be in corporate and investment banking but the numbers have yet to be decided. There will also be other areas where the bank uses “a lot of financing, or capital, or dollar-funding transactions where there may be some consequences,” said Mr. Ripoll, who sits on the French lender’s executive committee. Continue reading »