Barclays

• Snow is coming: OECD Cuts Economic Growth Forecasts (WSJ)
• World waits for white smoke from U.S. Fed (Reuters) - Understandable error: they meant "green"
• Scots Breakaway at 45% Odds as Economists Warn of Capital Flight (BBG)
• Ukraine President Poroshenko Faces Backlash Over EU Trade Deal Delay (WSJ)
• German Anti-Euro Party Advances in Merkel Homeland Voting (BBG)
• Clinton Hints at 2016 Run as Super-PAC Packs Iowa Steak Fry (BBG)
• Air France, Lufthansa Hit by Strikes in Fight for Future (BBG)
• U.S. sees Middle East help fighting IS, Britain cautious after beheading (Reuters)
• Ex-Billionaire Charged by Brazil With Financial Crimes (BBG)

Credit Suisse warns of a self-fuelling feedback loop of rising risks and costs to the Scottish financial and sovereign sectors, and a steady migration of capital, activity, jobs and taxes if the Scots vote "Yes". However, if the vote is a close "no", they warn "the cat is out of the bag," and risk remains.

• Russia faces new U.S., EU sanctions over Ukraine crisis (Reuters)
• Glasgow pulls no punches in welcome to 'Save the Union Express' (Guardian)
• Pound Seen Tumbling Up to 10% on Scottish Yes Vote (BBG)
• Moscow stifles dissent as soldiers return in coffins (Reuters)
• Ukraine's leader sees no military solution of crisis, eyes reforms (Reuters)
• Venezuela Threatens Harvard Professor for Default Comment (BBG)
• Australia Raises Terror Alert to Highest Level in a Decade (BBG)
• Activist Investors Build Up Their War Chests (WSJ)

• Obama orders U.S. airstrikes in Syria against Islamic State (Reuters)
• Obama Relying on Mideast Allies to Counter Islamic State (BBG)
• Scotland Nationalists Claim U.K. Oil in 40-Year Campaign (BBG)
• Scottish Polls Embolden Catalans Pushing Rajoy for Vote (BBG)
• Royal Bank of Scotland: RBS will leave Scotland if voters back independence (Guardian)
• Most Hedge-Fund Managers Are Overpaid, Unigestion Says (BBG)
• China Inflation Softens to Four-Month Low (WSJ)
• Munger Hosts Groupies, Mocks Wall Street, Praises Buffett (BBG)

Are you ready to have your veins scanned every time you use your bank account?  Are you ready to use a "digital tattoo" or a microchip implant to unlock your telephone?  Once upon a time we read about such technologies in science fiction novels, but now they are here.  The era of widespread biometric identification and microchip implants is upon us, and it is going to change the way that we live.  Proponents of these new technologies say that they will make our private information and our bank accounts much more secure.  But there are others that warn that these kinds of "Big Brother technologies" will set the stage for even more government intrusion into our lives.  In the wrong hands, such technologies could prove to be an absolute nightmare.

• British PM begs Scots: Don't rip apart our UK 'family of nations' (Reuters)
• Obama has become Bush: Obama’s Task: Rally U.S. Public, Allies in Terror Fight (BBG)
• Alibaba's record IPO covered after first few roadshow meetings (Reuters)
• Ferrari chairman Luca Di Montezemolo to quit after 23 years (BBC)
• Combat Reversals Pressure Assad (WSJ)
• Top LBO Fund Investors Pile on Leverage to Boost Returns (BBG)
• BOJ's Iwata upbeat on economy, unfazed by post-tax hike slump (Reuters)
• Carney Can’t Escape Housing as Debt Colors BOE Policy (BBG)
• Detroit Clears Crucial Hurdle on Bankruptcy (NYT)

On the day when Apple unveils "Apple Pay," enabling hackers to now get access not only to actor selfies but to their credit card numbers too; following smaller online retailers' lead - such as Overstock - the world's biggest marketplace, Ebay, has announced its PayPal unit will begin accepting bitcoin for payments. As Bloomberg reports, Ebay said at TechCrunch's Disrupt conference, "over the coming months we’ll allow our merchants to accept bitcoin. On the consumer side it will be a sleek experience." As we previously noted, Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne's comments that "once we and some other major guys start accepting it things could change very quickly," and Ebay seems to agree, adding "we're at the right time for this, and to see how to propel it forward." Bitcoin prices have not reacted to this news as the virtual currency has become considerably more stable in recent months.

Here we go... Icahn's been adding and everyone's excited about a bigger screen (like Samsung), an iWatch (like Motorola and Samsung), payments (like NFC on Samsung phones), Health (like Samsung), or whatever magic Tim Cook and his 'innovators' have in store. Apple's launch of iPhone 6 et al. will take place shortly...

• Showtime for Apple: Big phones, smart watches and high expectations (Reuters)
• Bank of England Gov. Mark Carney Signals Spring Rate Rise (WSJ)
• Quebec Shows Scots Question Returns Even If Answer Is No (BBG)
• Hush money with a 9 year vesting period: Ex-SAC Fund Manager Martoma Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison (BBG)
• Dreams on hold, Brazil's 'new middle class' turns on Rousseff (Reuters)
• Fed to Hit Biggest U.S. Banks With Tougher Capital Surcharge (WSJ)
• Egypt court sentences Brotherhood leader, cleric to 20 years in jail (Reuters)

For those just catching up on the main news event of the weekend, namely the sudden surge in Scotland "Yes" vote polling surpassing 50% for the first time, here is a complete round up of the background, updates and expert reactions from RanSquawk, Bloomberg and AFP.

After being solidly ignored for weeks, suddenly the Scottish independence referendum is all anyone can talk about, manifesting itself in a plunge in the GBPUSD which ha slide over 100 pips in the past 24 hours, adding to the slide over the past week, and is now just above 1.61, the lowest since November 2013. In fact, the collapse of the unionist momentum has managed to push back overnight news from Ukraine, major Russian sanction escalations, Japan GDP as well as global trade data on the back burner. Speaking of global trade, with both China and Germany reporting a record trade surplus overnight, with the US trade deficit declining recently, and with not a single country in the past several month reporting of an increase in imports, one wonders just which planet in the solar system (or beyond) the world, which once again finds itself in a magical global trade surplus position, is exporting to?

• Barclays 200K
• Citigroup 200K
• Deutsche Bank 200K
• HSBC 215K
• JP Morgan 225K
• UBS 230K
• Goldman Sachs 240K
• Morgan Stanley 250K

• Euro left reeling after ECB's liquidity splurge (Reuters)
• Coalition Emerges to Battle Islamic State Militants (WSJ)
• Ukraine Gas Chief Takes on Gazprom in Race With Winter (BBG)
• Nato leaders fail to agree spending targets (FT)
• JPMorgan Had Exodus of Tech Talent Before Hacker Breach (BBG)
• Mercedes-Benz Sales Rise Despite Weak German Demand (WSJ)
• Secret Network Connects Harvard Money to Payday Loans (BBG)
• ICE looks to crack financial data market (FT)

• Global stocks bounce on sign ECB could launch ABS program (Reuters)
• Putin unveils Ukraine ceasefire plan, France halts warship (Reuters)
• Poroshenko Flummoxes Investors With About-Face on Truce (BBG)
• No Free Lunch for Companies as IRS Weighs Meal Tax Rules (BBG)
• Turkey Struggles to Halt Islamic State 'Jihadist Highway' (WSJ)
• Lego Becomes World's Largest Toy Maker on Movie Success (WSJ)
• U.N. says $600 million needed to tackle Ebola as deaths top 1,900 (Reuters)
• Goldman Sachs Named 'Stabilization Agent' for Alibaba Stock Offering (WSJ)

Even as the NATO summit began hours ago in Wales, conveniently enough (for Obama) at the venue of the 2010 Ryder Cup, so far today geopolitics has taken a backseat to the biggest event of the day - the ECB's much hyped and anticipated announcement. So anticipated in fact that even as it has been priced in for the past month, especially by BlackRock which is already calculating the Christmas bonus on its "consultancy" in implementing the ECB's ABS purchasing program and manifesting itself in record low yields across Europe's bond market, Reuters decided to milk it some more moments ago with the following blast: "Plans to launch an asset-backed securities (ABS) and covered bond purchase programme worth up to 500 billion euros are on the table at Thursday's European Central Bank policy meeting..." The notable being the size of the program, which at €500 billion, is precisely what Deutsche Bank said a week ago the size of the ABS program would be. Almost as if the bank with the world's biggest derivative exposure is helping coordinate the "Private QE"...