• President Obama officially nominated Janet Yellen to be the next chairman of the Federal Reserve. If appointed, she will be tasked with deciding when to end the controversial bond-buying program, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• For the third straight month, Americans cut back on their credit card use. This could mean a decline in consumer spending, according to the New York Times.
• The number of Americans who watch online video content has grown significantly over the past four years. Humorous and educational videos are the top genre viewed by adults today, according to CNBC.
• Google Inc. will now be including the names of users in advertisements on webpages. For the tech-giant to include a user in an ad, he or she will have to share, like or follow something on Google+ (Google Inc.’s Facebook equivalent), according to the Wall Street Journal.
• Starbucks, led by CEO Howard Schultz, kicked off a petition to encourage law-makers to come to an agreement to reopen the government. On the first morning of its creation, more than 200,000 people had already signed, according to CNBC.
• Consumer confidence recently reached its lowest level in nine months. Though sentiment declined, the drop was relatively small as consumers spook less easily when reading about major economic indicators, according to CNBC.
• Americans Eugene Fama, Lars Peter Hansen and Robert Shiller took the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for their research into the operations on financial markets, asset prices and behavioral economics, according to the Wall Street Journal.
• A new psychological study that was released asserted that chewing popcorn in movie theaters allows people to avoid internalizing the subliminal messages of advertising, according to Bloomberg Businessweek.
• Blackberry Ltd. eased customers’ concerns in an open letter it released on Monday, Oct. 14 about its recent financial struggles. According to CNBC, the company has had trouble selling its most recent products, but claimed that their label is “here to stay.”
