US Economy 

• When was only time (since 1950) that year over year U.S. economic growth was negative and consumer prices were going down (deflation) instead of up (inflation) at the same time? Valeo Financial Advisors
• Consumer confidence fell to 73.2 in October, representing a decrease from the prior report of 75.2 as the budget standoff in Washington hurt the index Bloomberg News
• Existing home sales fell to 5.29 million in September as housing becomes less affordable with increasing mortgage costs Forbes

World Economy

• According to the IMF, high private debt is more detrimental to growth than high public debt as the Eurozone is plagued by bad debts The Economist
• Spain’s economy is looking better, but still may have a long way to go The Economist

Employment

• U.S. unemployment rate dropped to 7.2%, relative to 7.3% in August. The Wall Street Journal
• Initial jobless claims fell to 350,000 as a backlog of applications in California have distorted labor market evaluations Reuters  
• Nonfarm payrolls added 148,000 workers, which was significantly  lower  than the 193,000 gain in August Bloomberg News

Miscellaneous

• The IRS has said it will delay the start of next year’s filing season by up to two weeks due to the government shutdown this fall Yahoo! Finance
• Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen, and Robert Shiller were awarded The Nobel Prize in Economics for their work on “empirical analysis of asset prices.” The Economist
• The average costs at four-year public universities rose 2.9% this year, the smallest annual increase in more than three decades USA Today