Just Eat was the strongest performer on the FTSE 100 in early trading, with the value of shares climbing 1.5% to hit 637.3p.
On the FTSE 250, industrial and electronics product distributor, Electrocomponents, was the biggest winner, gaining over 5% to trade at 629.7p after unveiling that like-for-like sales had grown in the first half of the year.
Japan shares bounce back
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
Japan's Nikkei bounced back ahead of high level US-China trade talks, closing 1.0% higher at 21,587.78 points.
Overnight, the dollar rallied against the yen, pushing shares of Japanese exporters higher as a weak yen boosts profits.
League tables could show climate change status
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
A series of league tables could show how well companies are doing in meeting climate targets, the BBC has been told.
Steve Waygood, from Aviva Investors, told the Today programme: "At Aviva, we’ve helped to create the World Benchmarking Alliance, which will produce public league tables ranking the world’s largest companies on all
the sustainable development goals - including goal 13 about climate risk, the environment
in general and society in general.
"Development goals were set out in 2015 alongside the Paris Agreement, so to restore shareholder democracy and enable
the people who own these companies to understand how to engage and how to use
their voice, it’s important that people have this kind of data immediately and freely
to hand.
"Voluntary guidance comes out from the financial regulators, but because it's voluntary, corporate take-up, whilst OK, is by no means pervasive for investors to be able to compare and contrast global performances."
London markets climb slightly on open
Both of London's main share indexes climbed slightly after opening.
The FTSE 100 opened up 0.1% at 7,207. Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 also gained 0.1% to hit 19,439 just after trading began.
Tariff changes 'not a surprise'
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
pa mediaCopyright: pa media
The changes which have just been announced to tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit are "not a surprise", an expert has said.
Meredith Crowley, an international trade economist from the University of
Cambridge, told the Today programme: "It’s not surprising that they’re trying to get things a
little bit more fine-tuned.
"The UK has
had tariffs on biodiesel since 2012 as part of a complaint the European Union
has launched against Indonesia and Argentina for subsidising that sector, so
continuing to have roughly a 25-30% tariff on biodiesel isn’t surprising.
"With heavy goods vehicles they’ve lowered the tariff there.
That potentially is a sector that’s really facing some difficulty with Brexit, because 90% of commercial vehicles produced in Britain get sold in the EU, and so, on the export side, Britain’s
looking at facing high tariffs into the European Union.
"They were trying to have
the same high tariffs on imports from the European Union, but that could also
raise prices for purchasers of heavy goods vehicles.
"I would imagine that as this moves forward, they will
probably have to adjust again in the future as they start to see which sectors
within the UK economy suffer from some high tariffs that are still in place.
"But
they also might find that competition from third countries like China and parts of
Africa might actually put pressure on some UK producers, and they wouldn’t want
to see a lot of job loss here because of higher levels of competition from
lower tariffs."
More on the axed bid for London's stock exchange
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has withdrawn its £32bn bid for its UK rival after the London Stock Exchange rejected the offer, saying it fell "substantially short" of an appropriate valuation.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) said it was now in the interest of shareholders to drop the bid.
In a statement, the board said it still believed a tie-up was "strategically compelling" and "would create a world-leading market infrastructure group".
HKEX had until Wednesday to follow up its initial takeover proposal with a firm bid.
Under UK rules, it is not allowed to make another approach for the LSE for six months.
The US and Japan have inked a trade deal which focuses mostly agricultural products.
Japan will cut tariffs for $7bn (£5.7bn) worth of US farm exports, while Washington will cut US tariffs on $40m in Japanese agricultural goods and ease tariff rate quotas on the country's beef.
US President Donald Trump presided over a White House signing ceremony for the final text of the pact.
The new bilateral deal is more limited than the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Mr Trump withdrew from in 2017, and leaves out many major disputed categories, including cars and manufacturing equipment.
'Everything going wrong' for the chancellor
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
AFPCopyright: AFP
Chancellor Sajid Javid has been having a tough time since taking up the role, according to Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.
"Pretty much everything
that could have gone wrong for the current chancellor has gone wrong, in terms
of what’s been happening to the public finances," Mr Johnson told the Today programme.
"We’ve already lost about
£60bn out of the economy since the Brexit vote relative to where we would have
been, whilst the rest of the world economy has been growing quite strongly.
"One
of our problems going forward is that the fiscal headroom – or the war-chest –
that the previous chancellor thought he had left behind has already all gone, every penny of the £27bn or so.
"It's as a result of increasing spending that the
current chancellor has put through, plus the economy’s doing a bit less well than
we hoped, plus there have been some accounting changes from the Office for National Statistics, plus it seems that we were counting corporation tax
receipts wrong."
The Japanese car maker said earlier this year it would close the plant in 2021.
And David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at Birmingham Business School, says the prospect of finding another company to take on the factory that supplies the plant could be tough.
"The car industry itself is under such stress that volumes are being reduced," he told Wake Up to Money.
"At the very best there's likely to be very significant job losses and it sounds like the whole operation could go under."
"Brexit uncertainty makes getting that investment into the UK in the new technologies even more difficult."
'Charm offensive failed' in Hong Kong's Stock Exchange bid
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
A "charm offensive" in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange bid to buy the London Stock Exchange was not enough to clinch the deal, according to an expert.
Fiona Cincotta, from City Index, told the Today programme: "The bid was always on the back foot from the start
really.
"The Hong Kong Stock Exchange's largest holder is the Hong Kong
government and they launched a charm offensive on the London Stock Exchange in order to try to get
this bid through and they have conceded defeat.
"You could probably could draw a line under this one."
Ryanair and BA strikes help EasyJet
PA MediaCopyright: PA Media
EasyJet said its results for the year have been helped by strikes at Ryanair and British Airways.
"EasyJet has continued to perform in line with expectations, despite challenging market conditions," the airline's boss, Johan Lundgren, said in a statement.
He said "increased demand due to disruption at British Airways and Ryanair" meant full year profits for 2019 were likely to be between £420m and £430m.
Samsung profits take a hit
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
Samsung has said it expects third-quarter
operating profits to tumble 56%, hurt by a downturn in
global memory chip prices.
The Korean giant's third quarter earnings guidance said operating profit was likely to be around $6.4bn ($5.2bn), down substantially from a record $15.5bn a year ago.
Samsung's profits are being weighed down by the US-China trade war, which has hit the company's component sales to Chinese companies.
Hong Kong Stock Exchange pulls £32bn bid for London rival
ReutersCopyright: Reuters
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has dropped its takeover bid for the prized London Stock Exchange Group.
Last month, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange made a shock £32bn bid to buy its rival in London.
But the London Stock Exchange rejected the offer the following day citing "fundamental" flaws and concerns over its ties to the Chinese government.
In statement today, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange said it was "disappointed" to pull its bid but that it was in the best interests of shareholders to do so.
Market doesn't believe Pizza Express will pay its debt
BBC Radio 5 Live
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
The market doesn't believe that Pizza Express will fully pay off its £600m debt, according to Fiona Cincotta, an analyst at City Index.
She was responding to reports that the pizza chain has hired financial advisers ahead of a meeting with lenders to review its debt situation.
She tole Wake Up to Money investors were currently buying the restaurant chain's debt for 84p in the pound, a sign that they are expecting the company to try to negotiate with its creditors.
That is down from 95p a year ago, she said.
She said that Pizza Express is paying £93m a year just to service its debt.
"Debt is a serial killer as far as the restaurants are concerned," she said.
Asian shares edge higher
Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty Images
Asian shares have opened slightly higher in early
trade, with investors cautious ahead of another round of US-China trade talks later this week.
Japan's Nikkei was a little over 1% higher in mid-morning trade, while China's mainland markets opened slightly higher after a week-long holiday.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 0.94%, while South Korea's Kospi and Australia's ASX also edged higher.
'No-deal Brexit likely to drench UK finances in red ink'
Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor
A doubling in the annual budget deficit, leading, in relation to the size of the economy, to the highest government debt since the 1960s.
These are the new forecasts of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies for how a no-deal Brexit is likely to drench the UK's public finances in red ink. Only on the extraordinary scale of the fiscal collapse of the 2008 financial crisis are these numbers modest.
On any ordinary scale they do matter - an annual deficit heading back up towards £100bn, and national debt closer to 90% of GDP for the first time in half a century.
And all this comes at a time where the institute concludes that the government is no longer taking its own fiscal rules seriously, borrowing more to spend more on public services even as the Treasury approaches its self-imposed limits.
Live Reporting
Daniel Thomas
All times stated are UK
FTSE winners
Just Eat was the strongest performer on the FTSE 100 in early trading, with the value of shares climbing 1.5% to hit 637.3p.
On the FTSE 250, industrial and electronics product distributor, Electrocomponents, was the biggest winner, gaining over 5% to trade at 629.7p after unveiling that like-for-like sales had grown in the first half of the year.
Japan shares bounce back
Japan's Nikkei bounced back ahead of high level US-China trade talks, closing 1.0% higher at 21,587.78 points.
Overnight, the dollar rallied against the yen, pushing shares of Japanese exporters higher as a weak yen boosts profits.
League tables could show climate change status
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
A series of league tables could show how well companies are doing in meeting climate targets, the BBC has been told.
Steve Waygood, from Aviva Investors, told the Today programme: "At Aviva, we’ve helped to create the World Benchmarking Alliance, which will produce public league tables ranking the world’s largest companies on all the sustainable development goals - including goal 13 about climate risk, the environment in general and society in general.
"Development goals were set out in 2015 alongside the Paris Agreement, so to restore shareholder democracy and enable the people who own these companies to understand how to engage and how to use their voice, it’s important that people have this kind of data immediately and freely to hand.
"Voluntary guidance comes out from the financial regulators, but because it's voluntary, corporate take-up, whilst OK, is by no means pervasive for investors to be able to compare and contrast global performances."
London markets climb slightly on open
Both of London's main share indexes climbed slightly after opening.
The FTSE 100 opened up 0.1% at 7,207. Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 also gained 0.1% to hit 19,439 just after trading began.
Tariff changes 'not a surprise'
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
The changes which have just been announced to tariffs in the event of a no-deal Brexit are "not a surprise", an expert has said.
Meredith Crowley, an international trade economist from the University of Cambridge, told the Today programme: "It’s not surprising that they’re trying to get things a little bit more fine-tuned.
"The UK has had tariffs on biodiesel since 2012 as part of a complaint the European Union has launched against Indonesia and Argentina for subsidising that sector, so continuing to have roughly a 25-30% tariff on biodiesel isn’t surprising.
"With heavy goods vehicles they’ve lowered the tariff there. That potentially is a sector that’s really facing some difficulty with Brexit, because 90% of commercial vehicles produced in Britain get sold in the EU, and so, on the export side, Britain’s looking at facing high tariffs into the European Union.
"They were trying to have the same high tariffs on imports from the European Union, but that could also raise prices for purchasers of heavy goods vehicles.
"I would imagine that as this moves forward, they will probably have to adjust again in the future as they start to see which sectors within the UK economy suffer from some high tariffs that are still in place.
"But they also might find that competition from third countries like China and parts of Africa might actually put pressure on some UK producers, and they wouldn’t want to see a lot of job loss here because of higher levels of competition from lower tariffs."
More on the axed bid for London's stock exchange
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has withdrawn its £32bn bid for its UK rival after the London Stock Exchange rejected the offer, saying it fell "substantially short" of an appropriate valuation.
Hong Kong Exchanges and Clearing (HKEX) said it was now in the interest of shareholders to drop the bid.
In a statement, the board said it still believed a tie-up was "strategically compelling" and "would create a world-leading market infrastructure group".
HKEX had until Wednesday to follow up its initial takeover proposal with a firm bid.
Under UK rules, it is not allowed to make another approach for the LSE for six months.
Read more here.
US and Japan ink trade deal
The US and Japan have inked a trade deal which focuses mostly agricultural products.
Japan will cut tariffs for $7bn (£5.7bn) worth of US farm exports, while Washington will cut US tariffs on $40m in Japanese agricultural goods and ease tariff rate quotas on the country's beef.
US President Donald Trump presided over a White House signing ceremony for the final text of the pact.
The new bilateral deal is more limited than the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Mr Trump withdrew from in 2017, and leaves out many major disputed categories, including cars and manufacturing equipment.
'Everything going wrong' for the chancellor
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
Chancellor Sajid Javid has been having a tough time since taking up the role, according to Paul Johnson from the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank.
"Pretty much everything that could have gone wrong for the current chancellor has gone wrong, in terms of what’s been happening to the public finances," Mr Johnson told the Today programme.
"We’ve already lost about £60bn out of the economy since the Brexit vote relative to where we would have been, whilst the rest of the world economy has been growing quite strongly.
"One of our problems going forward is that the fiscal headroom – or the war-chest – that the previous chancellor thought he had left behind has already all gone, every penny of the £27bn or so.
"It's as a result of increasing spending that the current chancellor has put through, plus the economy’s doing a bit less well than we hoped, plus there have been some accounting changes from the Office for National Statistics, plus it seems that we were counting corporation tax receipts wrong."
Government unveils new no-deal Brexit tariffs
'Whole Swindon plant could go under'
BBC Radio 5 Live
More than 1,000 jobs could be at risk at a firm that delivers parts to Honda's Swindon factory.
The Japanese car maker said earlier this year it would close the plant in 2021.
And David Bailey, professor of industrial strategy at Birmingham Business School, says the prospect of finding another company to take on the factory that supplies the plant could be tough.
"The car industry itself is under such stress that volumes are being reduced," he told Wake Up to Money.
"At the very best there's likely to be very significant job losses and it sounds like the whole operation could go under."
"Brexit uncertainty makes getting that investment into the UK in the new technologies even more difficult."
'Charm offensive failed' in Hong Kong's Stock Exchange bid
Today Programme
BBC Radio 4
A "charm offensive" in the Hong Kong Stock Exchange bid to buy the London Stock Exchange was not enough to clinch the deal, according to an expert.
Fiona Cincotta, from City Index, told the Today programme: "The bid was always on the back foot from the start really.
"The Hong Kong Stock Exchange's largest holder is the Hong Kong government and they launched a charm offensive on the London Stock Exchange in order to try to get this bid through and they have conceded defeat.
"You could probably could draw a line under this one."
Ryanair and BA strikes help EasyJet
EasyJet said its results for the year have been helped by strikes at Ryanair and British Airways.
"EasyJet has continued to perform in line with expectations, despite challenging market conditions," the airline's boss, Johan Lundgren, said in a statement.
He said "increased demand due to disruption at British Airways and Ryanair" meant full year profits for 2019 were likely to be between £420m and £430m.
Samsung profits take a hit
Samsung has said it expects third-quarter operating profits to tumble 56%, hurt by a downturn in global memory chip prices.
The Korean giant's third quarter earnings guidance said operating profit was likely to be around $6.4bn ($5.2bn), down substantially from a record $15.5bn a year ago.
Samsung's profits are being weighed down by the US-China trade war, which has hit the company's component sales to Chinese companies.
Hong Kong Stock Exchange pulls £32bn bid for London rival
The Hong Kong Stock Exchange has dropped its takeover bid for the prized London Stock Exchange Group.
Last month, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange made a shock £32bn bid to buy its rival in London.
But the London Stock Exchange rejected the offer the following day citing "fundamental" flaws and concerns over its ties to the Chinese government.
In statement today, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange said it was "disappointed" to pull its bid but that it was in the best interests of shareholders to do so.
Market doesn't believe Pizza Express will pay its debt
BBC Radio 5 Live
The market doesn't believe that Pizza Express will fully pay off its £600m debt, according to Fiona Cincotta, an analyst at City Index.
She was responding to reports that the pizza chain has hired financial advisers ahead of a meeting with lenders to review its debt situation.
She tole Wake Up to Money investors were currently buying the restaurant chain's debt for 84p in the pound, a sign that they are expecting the company to try to negotiate with its creditors.
That is down from 95p a year ago, she said.
She said that Pizza Express is paying £93m a year just to service its debt.
"Debt is a serial killer as far as the restaurants are concerned," she said.
Asian shares edge higher
Asian shares have opened slightly higher in early trade, with investors cautious ahead of another round of US-China trade talks later this week.
Japan's Nikkei was a little over 1% higher in mid-morning trade, while China's mainland markets opened slightly higher after a week-long holiday.
Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up 0.94%, while South Korea's Kospi and Australia's ASX also edged higher.
'No-deal Brexit likely to drench UK finances in red ink'
Faisal Islam
BBC Economics Editor
A doubling in the annual budget deficit, leading, in relation to the size of the economy, to the highest government debt since the 1960s.
These are the new forecasts of the independent Institute for Fiscal Studies for how a no-deal Brexit is likely to drench the UK's public finances in red ink. Only on the extraordinary scale of the fiscal collapse of the 2008 financial crisis are these numbers modest.
On any ordinary scale they do matter - an annual deficit heading back up towards £100bn, and national debt closer to 90% of GDP for the first time in half a century.
And all this comes at a time where the institute concludes that the government is no longer taking its own fiscal rules seriously, borrowing more to spend more on public services even as the Treasury approaches its self-imposed limits.
Read more here.
Benign no-deal Brexit could push government to borrow £100bn
Even a "relatively benign" no-deal Brexit would push UK debt to its highest level since the 1960s, the Institute for Fiscal Studies has said.
The think tank said borrowing next year would be likely to climb to £100bn and total debt would soar to 90% of national income.
This would mean the UK is borrowing almost as much as the country earns in a year.
"The government is now adrift without any effective fiscal anchor," said IFS director Paul Johnson.
Read more here.
Good morning!
Welcome to Business Live.
Overnight, we heard that government borrowing could reach its highest level in over half a century if the UK leaves the EU without a deal.
Today, we'll be watching out for EasyJet's results as well as new UK productivity numbers from the Office for National Statistics.
As ever, we'd love to hear from you at bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk.