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Investors should prepare for rising prices and more expansionary monetary policy now that President Barack Obama has won re-election, investor Jim Rogers told CNBC on news of the election. The co-founder with George Soros of the Quantum Fund said he expected Obama’s policies to drive up commodities and drive down the U.S. dollar. As the Federal Reserve moves to ‘stimulate’ a stalled economy through debt purchases, Rogers says markets should expect the status quo to remain the same. “If Obama wins, it’s going to be more inflation, more money printing, more debt, more spending.” Rogers told CNBC, saying he expected to sell U.S. government debt and buy precious metals, such as silver and gold.  “It’s not going to be good for you me or anybody else.”

• Obama Wins Re-election With Romney Defeated in Key States (Bloomberg, Reuters)
• Romney's last, greatest 'turnaround' falls short (Reuters)
• Control of Congress set to remain split (FT)
• Republicans to Hold Most Governor Offices Since 2000 (Bloomberg)
• Economic Unease Looms After Win (WSJ)
• Storm-lashed New York, New Jersey scramble as weather threatens (Reuters)
• Democrats Assured of Keeping U.S. Senate Majority (Bloomberg)
• Greece to vote on austerity, protests intensify (Reuters)
• France offers businesses €20bn tax break (FT) ... Wait, what?
• Putin Fires Defense Chief in Rare Move (WSJ)
• China premier Wen calls for deeper cooperation on disasters (China Daily)
• China wrestles over democratic reform (FT)
• Top-Performing Won Threatens to Hurt Korea Export Rebound (Bloomberg)

• Obama-Romney: Breaking the Tie (BBG)
• Fiscal cliff looms over campaign climax (FT)
• Tough Calls on Deficit Await the Winner (WSJ)
• Election Likely to Leave Housing Unmoved (WSJ)
• Regulator Investigating Rochdale Trading (WSJ)
• Greeks Plan Strikes On Eve of Votes (WSJ)
• China Communists consider internal democratic reform (Reuters)
• Wen urges Asia-Europe co-op to promote world economy (China Daily)
• Italy Said to Reject Bad Bank That May Boost Ties to Sovereign (BBG)
• IMF warning adds to French economy fears (FT)
• Europe, Central Bank Spar Over Athens Aid (WSJ)
• Unlimited Lending May Help Weaken the Yen, BOJ Official Says (BBG)
• PBOC Official Says U.S. Election Won’t Impact Yuan Level (BBG) - Just the USD level to which it is pegged

• Obama and Romney Deadlocked, Polls Show (WSJ)
• NYC Commuter Week Faces Uncharted Ground as Storm Brews (Bloomberg)
• New York region struggles to move on a week after Sandy (Reuters)
• Europe's Bank Reviews Collateral (WSJ)
• Less circuses to pay for the bread? Time Warner Cable misses on falling demand (Reuters)
• Spanish unemployment total jumps by 128,242 as recession continues to take its toll on economy (Independent)
• Goldman Sachs Partner List Drops 31 Since February, Filing Shows (Bloomberg)
• China's mission impossible - a date for Hu's military handover (Reuters)
• German-Iranian trade booming (Jerusalem Post)
• Russia supplying arms to Syria under old contracts: Lavrov (Reuters)
• Russia endorses Egyptian-led regional group on Syria (Reuters)
• Election Winner Must Win Over Wall Street (Bloomberg)
• On Google, a Political Mystery That's All Numbers (WSJ)
• Richard Koo: explain to Americans why $22 trillion in debt in 4 years is good for them.. or something (FT)

• Scope of Sandy's devastation widens, death toll spirals (Reuters)
• On Staten Island, cries for help replaced by a loss for words (Reuters)
• China responds to Japan’s provocation (FT)
• Japan governments open to compromise to avoid “fiscal cliff” (Reuters)
• It's Global Warming, Stupid (Businessweek)
• Sharps says there is "Material Doubt" about its ability to survive (Bloomberg)
• Thomson Reuters operating profit slips, trading faces pressure (Reuters)
• Germany's Schaeuble says debt reduction is global task (Reuters)
• The Luxury Repo Men (Businessweek)
• Deutsche Bank Faces Top Surcharge as FSB Shuffles Tiers (Bloomberg)
• Storm over ‘Lagarde list’ intensifies (FT)
• Greek, European Officials Dispute Budget Reprieve (WSJ)
• Rivals part ways over economy (FT)

As we enter the North American session, equity markets are seen marginally higher, as concerns over the never-ending Greek debt drama are offset by the release of an encouraging data from China. Chinese HSBC Manufacturing PMI printed a fresh 8-month high, while the official Chinese Manufacturing PMI came in line with expectations. In addition to that, a state researcher has said that the countries economy has bottomed and is stabilizing. Meanwhile in Greece, the fact that debt is now seen climbing to 192% in 2014 and an agreement on how to defuse the situation has yet to be found may lead to another speculative attack not only on Greek paper, but also other southern states. As a result, GR/GE 10s spread is seen wider by 30bps, however other peripheral bond yield spreads with respect to the German Bund are tighter. The second half of the session sees the release of the latest weekly jobs report, consumer confidence and the weekly DoE from the US.

It is cloudy out there as Sandy enters the mid-Atlantic region, although for all the pre-apocalypse preparations in New York, the Frankenstorm may just be yet another dud now that its landfall is expected to come sufficiently south of NYC to make the latest round of Zone 1 evacuations about overblown as last year's Irene hysteria (of course it will be a gift from god for each and every S&P company as it will provide a perfect excuse for everyone to miss revenues and earnings in Q4). That said, Wall Street is effectively closed today for carbon-based lifeforms if not for electron ones, and a quick look at the futures bottom line, which will be open until 9:15 am Eastern, shows a lot of red, with ES down nearly 10 ticks (Shanghai down again as the same old realization seeps day after day - no major easing from the PBOC means Bernanke and company is on their own) as the Friday overnight summary is back on again: Johnny 5 must defend 1400 in ES and 1.2900 in EURUSD at all costs for just two more hours.

Go to any university, any center of equities trade, any meeting place for financial academia, any fiscal think tank, and they will tell you without the slightest hint of doubt in their eyes that the U.S. economy is essential to the survival of the world.  To even broach the possibility that the U.S. could be dropped or replaced as the central pillar of trade on the planet is greeted with sneers and even anger.  But let’s set aside what we think (or what we assume) we know about the American financial juggernaut and consider the sordid history of the money powerhouse myth. China’s incredible gold buying extravaganzas over the past few years indicate that they are indeed hedging against what they obviously expect will be devaluation in the dollar or multiple currencies around the world including the dollar.

Unlcear if as on recent occasions, there will be 7,000 policemen protecting him: Mario Draghi travels to Berlin today to meet with key German parliament members involved in the eurozone crisis policy.  This private meeting is the ECB president’s effort to defend his new bond buying plan as a legitimate instrument in its monetary policy arsenal. Germany’s legislative backing is critical for Draghi’s plan to buy up Spanish and other eurozone area government bonds. The Bundesbank president, Jens Weidmann, says the program is tantamount to financing governments by printing money, which is prohibited by the ECB’s founding treaty. ECB presidents normally give evidence to the European parliament but rarely if ever address national legislatures especially behind closed doors.  This journey is highly unusual but a critical sell for Draghi. Today’s session will be followed by a press briefing at 4pm local time by Mr. Draghi and Bundestag leader Norbert Lammert.

In recent months there has been a lot of incorrect speculation that because Iran has been shut off from the petrodollar, SWIFT-mediated regime, its economy will implode as the country has no access to the all important greenback and can thus not conduct international trade - the driving factor behind the international sanctions that seek to topple the local government as Iran dies an economic death. And while there have been bouts of substantial inflation, which so far the local government appears to have managed to put a lid on by curbing gray market speculation, Iran continues to more or less operate on its merry ways with international trade most certainly taking place, especially with China, Russia and India as main trading partners. "How is this possible" those who support the Western-led embargo of all Iranian trade will ask? Simple - gold. Because while Iran may have no access to dollars, it has ample access to gold. This in itself is not new - we have reported in the past that Iran has imported substantial amounts of gold from Turkey, despite the Turkish government's stern denials. Today, courtesy of Reuters, we learn precisely what the 21st century equivalent of the Great Silk Road looks like, and just how effective Iran has been as a lab rat in escaping the great petrodollar experiment, from which conventional wisdom tells us there is no escape. Presenting: petrogold.

German Federal auditors handed in a report slamming the Bundesbank for not inspecting their foreign held gold reserves to verify their book value. The report says the gold bars "have never been physically checked by the Bundesbank itself or other independent auditors regarding their authenticity or weight." Instead, it relies on "written confirmations by the storage sites."  The lion’s share of Germany's gold reserves (nearly 3,400 tons estimated at $190 billion) are housed in vaults of the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the Bank of France since the post-war days, when they were worried about a Cold War Soviet invasion. The Bundesbank stated, “There is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites in this regard". In contrast with best industry practices Germany’s gold reserves do not seem to be independently verified by a third party. Philipp Missfelder, a politician from Merkel’s own party, has asked the Bundesbank for the right to view the gold bars in Paris and London, but the central bank has denied the request, citing the lack of visitor rooms in those facilities, German’s daily Bild reported. The Bundesbank won't let German parliament members inspect the German gold vaulted abroad because the central bank vaulting facilities supposedly lack "visiting rooms." And yet one of those vaults, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, offers the public tours that include "an exclusive visit to the gold vault".

The International Monetary Fund’s paper, “The Chicago Plan Revisited” by Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof highlighted a means to wipe out debt by legislation by using state created money to replace the private banking system and was commented on in The Telegraph by journalist Ambrose Evans-Prichard. The full paper can be read here. In sum, the paper illuminates on a plan created in 1936 by professors Henry Simons and Irving Fisher during the aftermath of the US Depression. It examines how money  created by credit cycles leads to a damaging creation of wealth.   Authors, Benes and Kumhof argue that credit-cycle trauma - caused by private money creation – has been around forever and lies at the root of debt catastrophes as far back as ancient Mesopotia and the Middle East. They claim that not only harvest cycles lead to defaults but rather the concentration of wealth in the hands of lenders would have augmented the outcome.

First it was more than the UK. Then more than Portugal. Then a month ago we said that as of September, "it is now safe to say that in 2012 alone China has imported more gold than the ECB's entire official 502.1 tons of holdings." Sure enough, according to the latest release from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, through the end of August, China had imported a whopping gross 512 tons of gold, 10 tons more than the latest official ECB gold holdings. We can now safely say that as of today, China will have imported more gold than the 11th largest official holder of gold, India, with 558 tons. Yet despite importing more gold than the sovereign holdings of virtually all official entities, save for ten, importing more gold in July than in any month in 2012 except for April, importing more gold in 8 months in 2012 than all of 2011, and importing four times as much between January and July than as much as in the same period last year, here is MarketWatch with its brilliant conclusion that the 'plunge' in gold imports in August can only be indicative of the end of the Chinese gold market, and the second coming of infinitely dilutable fiat.

EU leaders committed to establishing a euro-area bank supervisor by year-end, leaving the door open for supplying direct aid to Spanish banks. The EU must now agree on the structure that makes the ECB (European Central Bank) the main supervisor by January 1st.  This new system was created to break the link between banks and governments at the root of the zone’s financial crisis and will roll out in the next year and expect to cover all 6,000 eurozone banks by January 2014. “Our goal is banking supervision that’s worthy of the name, because we want to create something that’s better than what we currently have,” Merkel told reporters. Germany and France argued contentiously about the timing.  Berlin has insisted the supervisor be effective before the ESM can begin cash injections into Spanish banks, those transactions are not foreseeable to occur until the latter half of the year, around the time of Germany’s national elections. Angela Merkel said it would take more than a few months before the supervisor was fully effective and direct bank recapitalisation could be considered. However, the agreement appeared to upset German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble's efforts to delay and limit the scope of European banking supervision. Germany has been averse to see its politically sensitive Savings and Cooperative banks come under outside supervision. It rejects any joint deposit guarantee under which wealthier countries might have to underwrite banks in poorer states.

• Debt Fuels a Dividend Boom - Firms Collect Payouts, and Investors Get Yield; 'Reminiscent of the Bubble Era' (WSJ)
• Black Monday Echoes With Computers Failing to Restore Confidence (BBG)
• Poll: Obama Leads in Wisconsin, Iowa (WSJ)
• Gold Imports by India Seen Climbing First Time in Six Quarters (BBG)
• Europe pushes ahead towards ECB bank supervision (Reuters)
• ... And fails: Summit fails to agree timetable for aid to failing lenders (FT)
• Toyota Prius Dominates California as State’s No. 1 Model (BBG)
• Italy raises €18bn in huge bond sale (FT)
• Diplomacy inbox fills up as U.N. awaits U.S. presidential vote (Reuters)
• Goldman braced for more revelations (FT)
• China power brokers agree preferred leadership team (Reuters)
• EU, Japan Warn Against New US Swaps Rules (WSJ)
• Why VaR is the most meaningless contraption ever: Morgan Stanley shows the ‘flaky’ side of model (FT)
• Made in France Trumps Consumer Choice in Hollande Jobs Quest (BBG)
• North Korea threatens South over propaganda balloons (Reuters)