A daily morning look at the financial stories you need to know to start the day
STOCKS/ECONOMY
-Stock futures are a bit down after yesterday's down day. Investors are waiting on the release of the Fed minutes live on Power Lunch at 2pm Eastern. Target and Cisco report earnings today.
-Mortgage applications fell 4% over the past week, even as rates sit near record lows.
-Top level corporate insiders are taking profits and selling surging amounts of stock as the market hits new highs.
-Lowe's earnings just came out and they included a revenue miss and a full-year guidance cut.
OIL/ENERGY
-Crude prices are a bit down ahead of today's inventory report. They're still holding at the $46/barrel level.
-Gasoline prices rose a penny overnight to $2.13/gallon, national average.
OBAMACARE
-The New York Federal Reserve Bank survey shows that rising employer health care costs due to Obamacare requirements are indeed forcing about 20% of employers to cut jobs.
ELECTION
-Donald Trump is shaking up his campaign staff again, giving top rolls to frequent CNBC guest Kellyanne Conway and Breitbart co-founder Steve Bannon.
-At a campaign rally in Wisconsin, Trump focused on the riots in Milwaukee this week. He also accused Hillary Clinton and the Democrats of being bigots for ignoring the real plight of African Americans and just worrying about their votes.
-Hillary Clinton now leads Trump in the LA Times/USC poll by one point.
CISCO
-Cisco is cutting a whopping 14,000 jobs.
-Facebook's efforts to improve diversity in its hiring appear to be failing.
CEO OUSTED
-Barnes & Noble is firing its CEO after less than one year on the job.
LUMBER LIQUIDATORS CASE
-Lumber Liquidators shares are jumping after a California court ruled in its favor in its cancer-causing formaldehyde scandal.
TERROR/DEFENSE
-The iconic Marine One helicopter, which transports the President of the United States, will no longer be maintained by Sikorsky. After talks with Washington broke down, the contract was awarded to Lockheed Martin. The maintenance jobs will thus be moved from Connecticut to Florida.
-Washington has turned the funding back on for the F-35, authorizing a $1 billion payment to Lockheed Martin to stem production costs.
-Lockheed Martin and Raytheon are locked in a competition to supply the Patriot Missile system with new radar. The Pentagon wants them to come up with options that cost about $50 million per unit.