BASF Halts 80 Factories; Oil Prices Slide to $53 a Barrel; Chinese Automakers Ask for Gov’t Aid; October Housing Starts Hit 49-Year Low; Honeywell Lands Engine Deal; Fed Sees Year-long Recession; Holiday Sales and Traffic to Plummet; BJ’s Profit Jumps 24%

The world’s largest chemical company, BASF SE (ADR:BASFY), lowered its profit forecast and announced plans to halt operations at 80 factories. The Ludwigshafen-based company cited reduced orders from the auto, construction and textile industries, Bloomberg reported. Oil prices continue sliding, as U.S. crude fell to $53.30 a barrel yesterday (Wednesday) – the lowest price since January 2007. Oil has dropped almost two-thirds from its record $147 a barrel in July, ...

Avanex Corporation, a global provider of optical network solutions, today announced the appointment of Dr. Giovanni Barbarossa as CEO, President, and Director. Dr. Barbarossa has been with the company for 8 years, serving as Chief Technical Officer and Sr. V.P., and, since July, as Interim CEO. He has also been named as a member of the Avanex Board of Directors.

Prior to Avanex, Dr. Barbarossa held senior management roles in the Optical Networking Division of Agilent Technologies, and in the Network Product Group of Lucent Technologies. Before that he was with AT&T Labs, and a research associate with Bell Labs. He has a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Glasgow, U.K., and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Bari in Italy.

Paul Smith, Avanex Board Chairman, commented on the factors involved in the decision, including Barbarossa’s company and industry knowledge, and his strong relationships with customers. “During

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t’s official, for what it’s worth. Both Europe and Japan are in recession. The Eurozone contracted by 0.2% for the second straight quarter. Germany (the largest economy in Europe) and Italy (fourth largest) both shrank in the third quarter. Japan’s economy-the world’s second largest-shrank by almost half a percentage point in the third quarter.

The world’s largest economy, as you already know, is in recession too. In the U.S., financial capitalism is imploding. Citigroup’s CEO Vikram Pandit told analysts the company would lay off over 50,000 workers. He cited rising loan losses and an economy slowing much faster than the company previously expected.

Gulp.

As over-sold as we believe Australian stocks are at the moment, we’d be foolish to ignore the warning signs flashed yesterday all over the globe. Bill had better take down the crash alert flag and run up the depression alert flat.

World GDP is around $54 trillion. The U.S., Japan,

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Losses in equities worldwide top $25 trillion. What say ye, Obama?… Japan, eurozone enter recession, Gulf bourses continue to tumble… Turning fear into profit: A special volatility report, and plenty more…

The bloodletting continues.

On Friday the 15-nation Euro-zone announced that it is officially in a recession. GDP contracted by 0.2% for a second consecutive quarter over on the continent with Germany and Italy leading the way backwards. France narrowly escaped an “official” recession – two consecutive quarters of negative growth – by the narrowest of margins, posting 0.1% growth.

It has been 15 years since the last time Europe experienced such a large-scale downturn. Back then, of course, each country was able to act independently on monetary policy. Now they must seek permission from EU executive before rushing to save their own behinds. We wonder how the bureaucratic behemoth is taking the news and, more to the point, how it will react.

Socialist

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by Edward Hugh: BarcelonaItaly, which is still the eurozone's third biggest economy, slipped into a recession in the third quarter. The Italian economy fell into what is now its fourth recession in less than a decade as gross domestic product shrank 0.5 percent from its level in the second quarter, when it contracted a revised 0.4 percent, the national statistics office said today. This is already Italy's worst recession since 1992, and there is evidently more and worse to come.Italy effectively followed Germany, Europe's largest economy, in posting two consecutive quarters of contraction -- the technical definition of a recession. Spain contracted on the quarter, while France narrowly avoided recession by posting a slender 0.1% expansion after contracting in the second quarter.From the third quarter of 2007 the economy contracted 0.9 percent, and this was the sharpest ...

You've got to hand it to the Spanish - while their friends in France, Germany, and even Italy get twisted up in the bickering with other EU members over common energy policy and relations with Russia, the Iberian peninsula often appears to be blissfully unaware and uninvolved. After all, as they are geographically beyond the reach of Moscow's pipeline arteries, they enjoy a diverse supply of natural gas from Norway, Algeria, and the spot market at LNG terminals. As such Madrid has not really had to worry that much about Gazprom's encroachment on various companies and assets critical to security of supply (not to mention the trafficking of influence). In a recent interview with the Economist, two-term Socialist Prime Minister José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero did not mention Russia or energy even once, despite the approaching partnership talks. He ...

Elephant Talk seeks to become a supplier of choice for Business-to-Business telecommunications and content services. By combining fixed line and wireless access services through contractual arrangements with an unrestricted number of first/last mile telecom providers, Elephant Talk is able to offer innovative Mobile, Content, VoIP and Media Streaming as well as more traditional telecom services including: Carrier (Pre) Select, Premium Rate, Shared Cost and Toll Free Services.

Such contracts have expanded the company’s footprint into sophisticated networks in over a dozen markets in Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East. Partners like KPN in the Netherlands, Telefonica in Spain, Swisscom in Switzerland, Telecom Italia in Italy, and Belgacom in Belgium have laid the groundwork for exciting partnerships to come; notably an upcoming definitive contract with T-Mobile in the near future.

Recently, Elephant Talk announced that its first Mobile Virtual Network Enabler (MVNE) platform using the antenna network of T-Mobile became operational in

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The U.S. isn’t the only country rolling back on free-market principles. Communist China is also busy bailing out its economy. Over the weekend, the People’s Republic announced a $586 billion ’stimulus’ plan of it own. U.S stock futures are up on the news.

- Italy may be the next country to ‘rescue’ its economy with taxpayers’ money. According the The Times the Italian government was working on plans over the weekend to pump as much as $26 billion into its biggest banks.

- Uncle Sam is about to bailout AIG from its bailout. Apparently, the original handout was too tough on poor old AIG. So now its going to get a sweeter deal. This from the WSJ:

The U.S. government reached a deal Sunday night to scrap its original $123 billion bailout of American International Group Inc. and replace it with a new $150

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Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) used to rule its niche world and will continue to do so, with lots of room to grow. As Coldplay’s “I used to rule the world…” played softly on the outside stereo speakers of my sailboat “Southern Cross” as my family and I pleasantly glided by Execution Rock on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in the Long Island Sound, I could not stop myself from thinking how the song got there.  It was coming out of my daughters’ Apple iPod, interfacing with the boat’s new iPod-ready stereo system.  And I was wondering whether it was time to get into Apple’s stock.  Yes … even on a weekend sail. Apple in My Home I have been patiently waiting to get into Apple for a long time. And now the market was tanking, sending good companies’ stock prices down with bad ...

A meeting between Dmitry Medvedev and Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has led to a series of agreements in the energy sector - as well as the usual criticisms of Berlusconi’s style. TMK, which produces steel pipes for the energy sector, has signed a supply deal with India’s ONGC. Gazprom is to begin drilling for natural gas off the coast of Venezuela today. Is another oil price spike on its way?