(Reuters) - Consumer prices outside food and energy rose at their slowest pace in six months in September as the cost of apparel and used vehicles fell, suggesting inflation pressures remained contained. Another report on Wednesday showed groundbreaking on new homes rose at the fastest rate in 1-1/2 years, though most of the gains came from the often volatile multi-family construction.

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(Reuters) - A double-notch downgrade of Spain's credit rating has piled pressure on European leaders to make convincing progress on solving the region's debt crisis at an October 23 summit. The blow from Moody's Investors Service came just a day after the agency warned France its triple-A rating could come under pressure and as Greeks began their biggest strike in years in protest at a painful austerity drive designed to avert default.

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(Reuters) - Morgan Stanley (MS.N) reported a third-quarter profit and its trading and merger advisory businesses performed better than competitors'. The bank benefited from a $3.4 billion accounting gain, and its underlying businesses looked strong enough for investors to send its shares up 1.3 percent in premarket trading.

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(Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Commission has launched a broad, agency-wide review of exchange-traded funds to ensure they are adequately transparent and not fueling market volatility, a top agency official told lawmakers on Wednesday. "Commission staff is currently engaged in a general review of exchange-traded products in connection with, among others, the adequacy of investor disclosure, liquidity levels and transparency of underlying instruments in which ETPs invest, fair valuations, efficiency in the arbitrage process and the relationship between market volatility and ETPs," said SEC Investment Management director Eileen Rominger in prepared testimony.

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(Reuters) - Stocks rose on Tuesday, led by financials, as better-than-expected bank earnings overshadowed new worries about the crisis in Europe fueled by a warning over France's credit rating. The three major indexes spent the early part of the session in negative territory before banks led the way higher. The KBW bank index .BKX advanced nearly 4 percent.

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(Reuters) - Goldman Sachs Group Inc lost $428 million in the third quarter, only its second quarterly loss as a public company, as its investment portfolio tanked and trading revenue fell. The results underscore how investment banks can face headaches from their assets even as regulators clamp down on risk-taking.

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(Reuters) - Bank of America Corp reported a third-quarter profit, boosted by accounting gains, but its main businesses struggled as income from lending and investment banking fell. But the bank's shares rose as some analysts and investors were heartened by higher-than-expected profit and an increase in quarterly revenue. The stock, which has been volatile, has fallen more than 50 percent since mid-January.

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(Reuters) - Standard & Poor's on Tuesday downgraded 24 Italian banks and financial institutions, citing renewed "market tensions" and lower economic growth prospects. The action was taken after a review of the implications of a tougher-than-previously-anticipated macroeconomic and financial environment for the Italian banks, the credit rating agency said.

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(Reuters) - Wholesale prices rose at their fastest pace in five months in September as the cost of gasoline surged, but a small gain in core prices suggested the price pressure was unlikely to be sustained. While the jump in gasoline prices was seen as a blip, details of the report on Tuesday pointed to enough inflation pressure to keep the bar high for any further loosening of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve.

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(Reuters) - Wall Street stocks fell more than 1 percent on Monday as Germany's finance minister dampened expectations an upcoming summit would produce a breakthrough in Europe's debt crisis. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said a European Union meeting on October 23 would adopt a platform to address the region's financial turmoil, but "we won't have a definitive solution this weekend," he added.

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