Thank you to all our veterans and active duty military personnel.  The stock market is open as usual but the bond market closed for Veterans Day. There are no government reports and some businesses are also closed.  
 
The fast-food chain McDonald’s, has faced pressure to spin off its company-owned U.S. restaurants into a real estate investment trust, but has concluded such a move would be risky and not offer investors enough upside. McDonald’s gets a big chunk of revenue from the rent it collects from franchisees. Rent payments to McDonald’s have risen 26% between 2009 and 2014.  (Reuters)
 
Safeway is trying to dissolve its partnership with startup Theranos. The supermarket chain has spent $350 million to build clinics to offer Theranos blood tests, which never began. (WSJ)
 
Macy's reported a third-quarter profit of $118 million on sales of $5.87 billion. Both numbers were lower than expected.  The company was hurt by the warm fall weather.  Macy's shares have decreased 28% since the beginning of the year. (AP)
 
A sharp jump in mortgage rates did not affect the pace of home loan applications as much as expected, with total volume falling  just 1.3% last week . (Mortgage Bankers Association)
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
U.S. oil prices fell this morning, after industry data showed an increase in crude stockpiles.
 

Portland based Blount International posted Q3 sales of $209 million, down 15% compared to prior year. Profits declined 22% to $30 million.  The company continues to experience significant headwinds driven by the strength of the U.S. Dollar. Blount International, is a global manufacturer and marketer of replacement parts, equipment, and accessories for the forestry
and agriculture; selling its products in more than 115 countries around the world. (Globe Newswire)
 
U.S. small business confidence was unchanged in October; with hiring stagnant even as more owners expected higher sales and more planned to make capital outlays according to The National Federation of Independent Business Small Business Optimism Index. The report shows muted inflation pressures with only 2% of owners raising their prices. (Reuters)
 
Men's Warehouse shares have tanked more than 40% since the company pre-announced dismal third-quarter results from its Jos. A. Bank brand on Friday. The company said that comparable sales at its Jos A. Bank label fell 14.6%. The company says same-store sales are expected to decline 20% to 25% more in the fourth quarter. (CNBC)
 
Chipotle may be able to reopen restaurants in Washington state and Oregon tomorrow , after tests found food samples to be free of the E. coli bacteria. (Reuters)

Weyerhaeuser has agreed to acquire Plum Creek Timber for $8.4 billion, in an all-stock deal, that represents a 21% premium to Plum Creek’s closing price on Friday. The deal will create the largest private owner of timberland in the US. The new company will have a value of $22.5 billion and manage 13 million acres of timberland. (FT)
 
Berkshire Hathaway more than doubled its third-quarter profit on its ownership in Kraft Heinz but saw weakness in its core insurance underwriting business.
The Warren Buffett-led company suffered big paper losses during the quarter on its IBM ownership. The company’s book value, a measure of net worth, rose 3.3% to $151,083 a share for the first nine months of the year, compared with a 7.1% increase in the year prior. (WSJ)
 
The Portland, Oregon-based Craft Brew Alliance, stock symbol BREW, reported third-quarter profits of $732,000 on revenue of $54.7 million.  The brewer makes Kona, Widmer Brothers and Redhook beers. Shares have fallen 46% since the beginning of the year. (AP)
 
Dean Foods, the largest U.S. milk processor, reported a third-quarter profit of $20.2 million, compared with a $16 million loss last year, helped by higher prices. Sales fell 14.3% to $2.03 billion. Dean Foods shares have fallen more than 7% in 2015. (Reuters)
 

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ remain on pace for a sixth consecutive positive week for the first time in 2015, despite losses the past two days.  But that streak could depend on today’s big jobs report. (CNBC)
 
The Department of Labor says the US economy added 271,000 jobs in October – 268,000 in the private sector and 3,000 by government with your tax dollars.  August and September were revised upwards.  The unemployment rate stands at 5%. Hourly wages are up 2.5% over the last year, the most since July 2009.
 
Could this be the bubble that will lead to the next market sell-off? Key federal banking regulators have raised red flags about risks in the nation's lending system in a new report, saying leveraged loans and borrowing by oil and gas companies are areas of particular concern. (CNBC)
 
Kraft Heinz reported earnings as a single company for the first time showing profits slid despite budget cuts and job eliminations. Earnings fell 3.4% to $1.5 billion, partly because the stronger U.S. dollar. Comparable sales fell 2%, driven partly by weak demand for its beverages and boxed dinners in the U.S. Kraft Heinz also said it increased its quarterly dividend by 4.5% to 57.5 cents a share.  (WSJ)
 

How bad is this earnings season? Well, according to Bloomberg, about three-quarters of the S&P 500 have already reported results, with profits down 3.1% on a share-weighted basis due to plunging profits oil and commodity-related companies. The figures reveal the biggest quarterly drop in earnings since 3Q of 2009, and the second straight period of profit declines. Earnings growth turned negative for the first time in six years last quarter.  (SA)
 
The euro is getting weaker and the U.S. dollar is getting stronger, reigniting a debate among traders over whether the currencies will trade in parity before the end of the year. The moves follow recent dovish remarks from ECB President Mario Draghi and comments from Fed Chair Janet Yellen, The Euro has recently edged down to just $1.08... (FT)
 
Jobless numbers are just out this morning: Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 276,000, higher than expectations of 262,000.  It was the 35th straight week that claims were below the 300,000 threshold, which is normally associated with a strong jobs market. (CBNC)
 
Oil is down $.02 at $46.32 a barrel. Saudi Arabia's state oil company has raised its official selling prices to Asia for December but cut them for Europe and the United States, as the world's largest crude exporter tries to place its barrels in an oversupplied market. (FT)
 

Mortgage interest rates rose last week and total mortgage applications fell 0.8%from the previous week. But applications are 10% higher than a year ago. Applications to refinance are 4% higher than a year ago and applications to purchase are 20% higher. (Mortgage Bankers Association)
 
Maybe Oregon City Governments can learn something about free enterprise from San Francisco voters. On Tuesday the San Francisco electorate defeated a ballot measure to curb short-term home and apartment rentals, handing a victory to companies such as Airbnb and the homeowners they represent. (Reuters)
 
The largest producer of OSB used in home building, Louisiana-Pacific, reported a loss of $26.5 million the last quarter. The home construction supplier posted sales of $464.9 million in the period. Shares are down 7% on the news. (AP)
 
Northwest Natural Gas reported a loss of $6.7 million in its third quarter. The natural gas distributor posted revenue of $93.1 million in the period. Northwest Natural Gas shares have declined slightly more than 4 percent since the beginning of the year.  (AP)
 
Office Depot reported third-quarter earnings that fell to $6 million, from a year ago. Costs related to the OfficeMax merger and pending acquisition of Staples were a drag on the bottom-line. Sales fell to $3.69 billion from $4.07 billion, on slightly better-than-expected North American retail sales. The stock, has dropped  about 13% year to date. (Market Watch)
 

November got off to a rousing start, with the S&P 500 and Nasdaq in positive territory for the year. All major stock measures are coming off their best closes in nearly three months. (CNBC)
 
Walgreens Boots Alliance is willing to divest as many as 1,000 stores in order to win approval to buy rival Rite Aid. Walgreens, however, doesn't expect to have to sell more than 500 stores. What this means for stores in Central Oregon is not yet clear. (AP)
 
After less than a year, the investment firm of billionaire George Soros has pulled its $500 million from a Janus bond fund managed by Bill Gross, because of poor returns. This could further hurt future returns as more investors follow the Soros lead and pull their money. (WSJ)
 
CEO’s are less confident about economic conditions in every major region across the globe, according to a quarterly survey of top business executives. Confidence in the U.S. dropped for the third consecutive quarter. In July, 37% of CEOs said that the economy had improved in the previous six months, in October survey, it slipped to 31%. The Global index fell 2.8 points to 58.1. The steepest decline among the nine global regions surveyed was Asia, where confidence dropped 4.7 points to 57.3. (CNBC)
 
American International Group, AIG, reported a third-quarter loss of $231 million. AIG blamed lower income on hedge-fund investments and assets marked to fair value through earnings, lower realized investment gains, and lower income from settlements of non-operating litigation. (AP)
 

Fruitful October was always going to be a hard month to follow. After strong gains, lacklustre Chinese data has left stock indices looking ripe for a fall at the start of the November trade.  European bourses are weakening, and there are losses across Asian stock benchmarks, after data out over the weekend showed a further contraction in China's manufacturing sector. (FT)

Meg Whitman will ring the bell of the New York Stock Exchange this morning, as the brand-new company she will lead - Hewlett Packard Enterprise- begins trading. The move will mark the end of the yearlong process of dividing the 76-year-old giant, resulting in two companies that are expected to have about $50B in annual revenue and each be among America's 500 largest public companies. On one side will be HP, which will largely consist of personal computers and printers. On the other will be HP Enterprise, which will sell servers, data storage, networking and consulting services. (SA)

Visa has agreed to acquire its former European subsidiary in a deal that could be worth as much as $25bn.  To fund the deal, Visa said it planned to raise about $16bn on the bond market in the first quarter of next year.  Combining forces will boost Visa’s scale to compete with rival MasterCard.  (FT)

The bond market is booming again, a sign of investors’ faith in the resilience of the U.S. economy.  U.S. bond sales by companies with good credit ratings hit $103 billion in October, a record for the month.  Corporate-bond sales in the U.S. are on track for their fourth straight annual record.  Many analysts say they expect bond sales to continue at a vigorous pace through the end of the year, reflecting steady economic growth, pent-up investor demand following a late-summer slowdown in bond issuance, and efforts by corporate treasurers to lock in low interest rates before a possible Federal Reserve interest-rate increase in December.  (WSJ)