Sun Life warns of large loss
The chase by Marty Cej:

Sun Life Financial just jumped into top spot on our priority list this morning after warning that it will report a net loss of $621 million in the third quarter, or $572 million on an operating basis. The average analyst expectation was for a profit of $259 million. The company blamed "losses related to substantial declines in both equity markets and interest rate levels, which particularly impacted the individual life and variable annuity businesses in SLF U.S." Paul Bagnell has the reporting file and Andrew McCreath will provide additional context and detail with regard to Sun Life's accounting in particular and insurer accounting in general. In short, Andrew will answer the question of whether Sun Life's warning can and should be applied across the rest of the Canadian and U.S. insurance company landscape. The warning will also help us frame the earnings reports from Citigroup and Wells Fargo, which both reported a few seconds ago. Bagnell will need a steady supply of beef jerky and trail mix to make it through the day; I'll hit Whole Foods before Business Day AM. Wasn't Sun Life supposed to be the safe one?

Also just crossing the tape a few moments ago, Lowe's says it will shutter 20 "underperforming" stores, including 10 that were closed yesterday. The second-biggest home improvement chain in the U.S. says almost 2,000 jobs will be "affected." The company also said that it will slow its growth from 2012 on to a pace of 10 to 15 new stores per year compared with a previous plan of 30 store openings per year. Lowe's also warned that the store closures will result in a hit to 2011 earnings per share of 17 to 20 cents per share. Lowe's decisions tell us not only a lot about the company itself but also its outlook for the U.S. economy, consumers and housing. Again, this is a perfect instance of a single company shedding a much broader spotlight on a much bigger story.

We are also covering yesterday's blockbuster $21-billion takeover of pipeline and E&P company El Paso by Kinder Morgan. Throw in the debt and you have a deal worth almost $40 billion. It marks the biggest deal in the energy industry and a year and comes hard on the heels of Sinopec's proposed takeover last week of Daylight. We also need to throw in Statoil's agreed takeover of Brigham Exploration for $4.4 billion. The deal will give Norway's Statoil access to oil fields in North Dakota. These are boom times for energy M&A and we need to take a close look at valuations and opportunities across the Canadian oil patch. Who's next? And who's advising on all these deals? Let's find out who is bringing the buyers and sellers together and who will be getting a bonus at year's end.

The Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers finished their meetings in Paris over the weekend with a strongly-worded exhortation to the euro-zone countries to fix their sovereign debt problems and to get the job done by the Oct. 23 summit for European leaders in Brussels. So that's it then, we are in the last few days of the European sovereign debt crisis. Phew.

Ummm, so German Chancellor Angela Merkel's chief spokesman Steffen Seibert said a little while ago that his boss has made it clear that "dreams that are taking hold again now that with this package everything will be solved and everything will be over on Monday won't be fulfilled." So the sovereign debt crisis is back on.

Bloomberg reports this morning that Statistics Canada sends at least 69 government workers and political aides market-moving economic reports a day before publication. Peter Frayne, a Statscan spokesman, says that advance release information, including the employment and inflation reports, "is provided to a restricted number of authorized federal government organizations to ensure they are in a position to react in a timely fashion when data may have an impact on policy." Sixty-nine people? In Ottawa? What could possibly go wrong? We need to verify the information in the story and gather some opinions from the people must trade on this information in good faith every morning.

I'm running late so in short, we are also covering the Occupy (Your City Here) movement and a raft of earnings from the likes of Halliburton, Gannett, IBM, Hasbro, Citi and Wells Fargo.

We also have the Bank of Canada Business Outlook Survey out at 10:30 and home sales out at 9 am.