The Other Side of Life 24/7: 10 Things You Need To Know Before The Opening Bell, September 19, 2011

Monday, September 19, 2011

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Monday, September 19, 2011

Good morning. Here's what you need to know.

With renewed fears of a Greek default, Asian markets were down in overnight trading with the Shanghai Composite falling 1.79%. Europe is sharply lower and U.S. futures are lower ahead of the market open.

Things turned for the worse over the weekend in Greece with the Troika consisting of the EU, the IMF and the European Central bank demanding more spending cuts. They have now called for the Papandreou government to lay-off more workers. The troika is holding a teleconference with Greek finance minister Evangelos Venizelos today, to help determine whether Greece has met conditions for its next tranche of loans. Refresher: Here's who gets crushed if Greece defaults >

As European debt woes continue, Angela Merkel's coalition took another hit in regional elections over the weekend. The Christian Democratic Party came in second, while ally Free Democrats fell below the 5% benchmark making them ineligible to get any seats during the election. Meanwhile, the Pirate Party amassed 9% of the votes.

President Obama is expected to ask the Super Committee to cut $3 trillion from the federal deficit, with half of those savings coming from $1.5 trillion in tax increases. Republicans have been critical of the 'Buffet Rule' which sets a minimum tax rate for those with incomes over $1 million, and are expected to reject the proposal for tax increases. The president will speak at 10:30 AM ET today.

Netflix is rebranding, and has decided to rename its DVD-by-mail business Qwikster. CEO Reed Hastings announced the change Sunday night, both will be part of the same company but the change in name shows that Netflix sees its future in streaming.

The National Association of Home Builders' housing market index for September will be released at 10 AM ET. Consensus is for the index to hold steady at 15. Follow the release at Money Game >

The Federal Open Market Committee will begin its two day meeting tomorrow. Expectations are that it will adopt a variation of "Operation Twist", but now all the chatter is about the Fed preparing for an end point to low rates, against its earlier promise of keeping rates low till 2013. Don't Miss: The complete guide to the FOMC meeting >

UBS' rogue equity trade losses widened to $2.3 billion and the bank began an internal investigation into the failure of its risk systems. London trader Kweku Adoboli has been charged with fraud and false accounting dating back to 2008.

Miami based construction company Lennar Corporation reported a 31% drop in Q3 earnings, posting net income of $20.7 million or $0.11 a share, on revenue of $820.2 million. Revenue beat Wall Street's expectations and the company said demand is improving, but is hurt by unemployment, weak consumer confidence and tightening of lending standards.