“I’m always thinking about losing money as opposed to making money. Don’t focus on making money; focus on protecting what you have.” – Paul Tudor Jones

1. U.S. Postal Service hits borrowing limit for first time — per Reuters, the financially struggling United States Postal Service has hit its $15 billion borrowing limit for the first time ever, meaning it will have to rely on revenues from stamps and other products to fund operations.
2. BOE split on whether it might need to print more money — the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee voted unanimously at a meeting earlier this month to leave its key lending rate unchanged at 0.5% and to maintain the size of its asset-purchase program at £375B, the minutes show.
3. China’s GDP growth slows but may mark bottom — according to MarketWatch, China’s economy cooled in July-September to its slowest pace of growth since the first quarter of 2009. China’s gross domestic product grew 7.4% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, slowing from the second quarter’s 7.6%. However, data for September showed increasing retail sales, industrial production, and fixed-asset investment in urban areas, providing hope that China’s deceleration may be bottoming out.
4. Housing Starts And Building Permits 1959 – 2012 — courtesy of BIG, Housing Starts and Building Permits for the month of September exceeded forecasts by a wide margin as both indicators rose to their highest levels since July 2008. At current levels, Housing Starts have risen 82% from their recession lows, while Building Permits have increased by 74%. Even after these big increases, however, both are still well below their pre-recession levels.

5. European Central Bank will take responsibility for overseeing euro zone banks in 2012 — cnbc reported that EU leaders have agreed to give the ECB oversight of eurozone banks starting from next year, a critical step that will allow the ESM to begin recapitalizing troubled institutions.
6. 25th Anniversary of the Oct. 19, 1987, stock market crash — the Dow Jones Averages crashed 508 points, or nearly 23%. The collapse sparked fears of another depression, although a recession didn’t come for two years and was relatively mild reported by the NYTimes.

The week ahead — Economic data from Econoday.com: