FT markets round-up: "Investors started the week in timid mood as worries about the looming Washington's budget negotiations and a meeting in Europe to discuss a bailout programme to Greece weighed on sentiment. The FTSE All-World equity index fell 0.1 per cent after the FTSE Eurofirst 300 closed 0.3 per cent lower. The dollar index was also little changed as the US government bond markets were closed for Veterans" Day, resulting in thinner trading volumes than usual. On Wall Street, the S&P 500 ended fractionally higher after see-sawing throughout most of the day. A batch of M&A moves, including Sherwin-Williams" offer to buy Comex for $2.3bn, including debt, helped support the index." Jefferies loses independence in $3.6bn deal: Leucadia National agreed to buy Jefferies in an all-share deal valuing the biggest of the remaining broker-dealers at about $3.6bn. Jefferies investors will receive 0.81 of a share of Leucadia common stock for each Jefferies share they hold - following the merger, Rich Handler, Jefferies chief executive, will become chief executive of Leucadia, while Brian Friedman, Jefferies chairman, will become president and Leucadia director. Despite its relatively high valuation - a 24 per cent premium to its market value of $2.9bn at the close of business on Friday - the Jefferies deal is likely to set off a wave of speculation about the prospects of other investment banks that fund themselves in the capital markets. (Financial Times) (FT Alphaville) Extension to add €15bn to Greek bailout: Extending Greece's bailout by two years will force international lenders to come up with €15bn in new financing for Athens by 2014 and as much as €32.6bn through 2016, according to a draft report prepared for eurozone finance ministers on Monday. The report, which is not yet final, warned that without extending the €174bn bailout by two years, Athens would have been forced to find €20.7bn in austerity measures instead of the €13.5bn passed by the Greek parliament last week. (Financial Times) (FT Brussels blog) Regulators probe UK natural gas market: The UK Financial Services Authority and the Office of the Gas and Electricity Markets are investigating unusual price activity in late September in the National Balancing Point (NBP), a so-called virtual hub that serves as the main pricing point for UK natural gas and is the most active gas market in Europe.The UK regulators are looking at whether a trader or group of traders submitted quotes below the prevailing market price in order to force physical prices at NBP to fall and, subsequently, profit from bearish positions in the derivatives market. Former money-market mutual-fund co-managers Bruce Bent Sr. and Bruce Bent II were cleared of intentional fraud in a federal civil trial on Monday, in a high-profile defeat for the Securities and Exchange Commission in claims stemming from the financial crisis. Mr. Bent and his son managed the $62 billion Reserve Primary Fund, which "broke the buck" in September 2008 by falling under the $1-per-share value that money funds seek to maintain, sparking a panic that spread to other money funds. The jury found Mr. Bent II liable on one claim of negligence. A sensible marriage (of politics & economics) and some remarkable timing. "The Long Peace" provokes a short war. Why the Jefferies deal could worry Wall Street's giants. Google has eaten the newspaper industry. "The Queen of Versailles": improbably the best film on the Great Recession. An Obama economic team to sweep Wall Street clean. How much does it *really* cost to send a text message?