Asian stock markets closed mostly in the green and European stocks rallied after minutes from the Fed's September meeting showed a more dovish stance than markets had predicted.
Here are five things that matter for markets now:
- Extremists from the Islamic State organization have taken over more than one third of the Syrian town on Kobani, close to the border with Turkey, despite U.S. air strikes. Turkey has massed troops on the border but these have not crossed over into Syria, despite pressure from U.S. and other Western officials to do so.
- Germany sidestepped calls from France to increase fiscal spending on investment to help the eurozone economy grow. In a meeting of EU heads of state in Italy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that while governments need to be flexible, they must stick to EU rules on budget deficits. Meanwhile, the German economy received more bad news as exports tanked by 5.8% in August, the biggest monthly fall since January 2009.
- Apple (AAPL) has invited reporters to an Oct. 16 event and expectations are that it will unveil new iPads and Mac computers, the FT writes.
- Fidelity Investments is among 13 financial companies that have been attacked by the same hackers who attacked JP Morgan Chase (JPM), the FT reports, quoting people familiar with the case. There was no indication that customer data had been stolen.
- Twitter's (TWTR) head of news Vivian Schiller announced she was stepping down. She had been hired in January and her departure is just the latest in a row of executive exits from the company.
At the time of publication, Antonia Oprita had no positions in any of the securities mentioned.