Bill Gross: Markets are a casino and 'this cannot end well' (CNBC)
The Janus Capital fund manager stepped up his criticism of institutions like the Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and Bank of Japan, charging that the trillions in negative-yielding debt are presenting investors with unpleasant choices. Recalling his days many years ago as a blackjack counter in Las Vegas, Gross reasons that "central bankers cannot continue to double down bets without risking a 'black' or perhaps 'grey' swan moment in global financial markets." "At some point investors — leery and indeed weary of receiving negative or near zero returns on their money, may at the margin desert the standard financial complex, for higher returning or better yet, less risky alternatives," he added.

Yahoo secretly scanned customer emails for US intelligence (Reuters)
Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers' incoming emails for specific information provided by U.S. intelligence officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The company complied with a classified U.S. government directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of the National Security Agency or FBI, said two former employees and a third person apprised of the events.

Early Twitter Investor Sacca Says He's Been Selling Shares (Bloomberg)
Chris Sacca, the investor who was once one of Twitter's largest shareholders, said he has been selling his stock in the social network, and is now hoping for an acquisition. ``I've definitely sold some Twitter shares,'' Sacca said in an interview Tuesday on Bloomberg Television. ``I don't own as many as I used to because I'm not an idiot, but I own more than I should because I'm an idiot.'' Sacca said the San Francisco-based company has fallen short of its potential by failing to showcase its most interesting content, despite tweaking the product to make it more accessible. Under Chief Executive Officer Jack Dorsey, not enough has changed, Sacca said -- he had believed that another co-founder, Ev Williams, would be given more influence over the product direction.

Julian Robertson Sees Opportunity Betting Against Fixed Income (Bloomberg)
Tiger Management’s Julian Robertson is betting against fixed income amid expectations of rising interest rates.
“I see it as a long-term sure thing to go short the bond market,” Robertson, 84, said Tuesday at Grant’s 2016 Fall Investment Conference in New York, adding that he has some exposure to this position. “In the meantime there are a lot of sharks in the water looking to eat us right up as we swim to shore,” he said, explaining that caution has held him back from taking larger positions. Robertson, who founded Tiger in 1980 and built it into one of the world’s largest hedge funds, said that for now he’s wagered against Italian sovereign debt, which yields less than U.S. government bonds. He said he’s watching German sovereign debt, whose negative yields seem “absurd.”

British man solves 'world's smallest Rubik's cube' with tweezers (UPI)
A British puzzle enthusiast shared video of his successful attempt to solve what he bills as the "world's smallest Rubik's cube." Tony Fisher, who holds the Guinness World Record for largest Rubik's cube after building a puzzle measuring more than 5 feet tall, created a Rubik's cube measuring only .22 inches on each side. Fisher said he couldn't get a 3D printer to make the puzzle small enough, so he filed down a cube that started at .24 inches on each side.

Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos top Forbes list of richest Americans (NYP)
The Microsoft billionaire on Tuesday was crowned the wealthiest American for the 23rd year in a row even as a new generation of tech wizards closes in on him. Gates is worth $81 billion after increasing his net worth by $5 billion in the last 12 months, according to the Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos rose to the No. 2 position, thanks to a 56 percent jump in the e-commerce giant’s share price. Bezos is now worth $67 billion. Warren Buffet, despite adding $3.5 billion, giving him a net worth of $65.5 billion, fell to third place.

Hedge Fund Targets Companies’ Weakness: The Gender Gap (Dealbook)
...activist hedge funds are also often guilty of nominating only men as candidates for a board. Since the beginning of 2011, five of the largest activist funds nominated 174 directors, just seven of them women, according to a March report by Bloomberg. However, a number of studies have shown the benefit of having at least one woman on a corporate board, including better director attendance, fewer rash acquisitions and a lower rate of earnings restatements and fraud. Ms. McKeever, 38, and her partner and co-founder of Ides Capital in Manhattan, Robert Longnecker, 42, saw diversification as a missing part of the typical activist strategy.

About 10K small business accounts affected by Wells Fargo scandal (CNBC)
Thousands of small business owners were also impacted by Wells Fargo's practices, wrote Vitter, a Republican from Louisiana, in a letter dated Sept. 29 to Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf and seen by Reuters. Vitter demanded a "full accounting" of small business owners affected by "fraudulent activity." Around 10,000 small business accounts were affected by improper Wells practices, people familiar with the matter said.

Karl Lagerfeld has no sympathy for Kim over jewelry heist (NYP)
Chanel creative director Karl Lagerfeld thinks Kim Kardashian is contemptible for flashing her $4.5 million ring on Instagram. The fashion icon doesn’t seem to have a shred of sympathy for Kim after she was held at gunpoint and robbed of nearly $10 million in jewels at her French hotel, saying instead, “It’s a very bad thing for Paris.” Lagerfeld told Reuters, “I don’t understand why she was in a hotel with no security … If you are that famous and you put all your jewelry on [social media], you go to hotels where nobody can come near to the room.” ... Lagerfeld — himself a lover of luxury whose cat Choupette has two maids and nearly 90,000 followers on Instagram — added of Kim’s garishly naïve nature, “You cannot display your wealth and then be surprised that some people want to share it with you.”