World markets
| Shanghai | 2,143.45 | -15.84 (-0.73%) |
| S&P 500 | 1,628.93 | -22.88 (-1.39%) |
| Nikkei 225 | 13,245.22 | 0.00 (0.00%) |
| Hang Seng Index | 20,986.89 | -238.99 (-1.13%) |
| TSEC | 8,007.39 | -3.63 (-0.05%) |
| EURO STOXX 50 | 2,683.98 | -16.95 (-0.63%) |
| CAC 40 | 3,839.34 | -21.21 (-0.55%) |
| S&P TSX | 12,268.29 | -99.17 (-0.80%) |
| S&P/ASX 200 | 4,861.40 | 0.00 (0.00%) |
| BSE Sensex | 19,245.70 | +22.42 (0.12%) |
| KOSPI | 1,888.31 | 0.00 (0.00%) |
George Osborne renews backing for more banking competition
George Osborne renewed his commitment to promote more competition in retail banking on Wednesday and asked the UK's antitrust regulator to assess what effect mandatory branch sales by Lloyds and Royal Bank of Scotland will have on the market.
| 6,348.82 | -25.39 | (-0.40%) | |
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| 14,010.36 | +15.97 | (0.11%) | |
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| 3,356.42 | -10.66 | (-0.32%) | |
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| 2,764.22 | +6.88 | (0.25%) |
Top stories
Sir Mervyn King's long goodbye came to a climax in the splendour of Mansion House on Wednesday night. The evening was a subdued affair, accompanied by the now familiar sporting analogies 'a game of two halves' and not a hint of a mea culpa.
Telecoms giant BT unveiled a change at the top yesterday as chief executive Ian Livingston revealed he is to become a government minister.
Genetically modified crops, first grown commercially in 1996, covered 170m hectares of the world's farmland last year - of which less than 0.1 per cent was in Europe where GM remains stuck in a political and regulatory quagmire.
The end is in sight for US Federal Reserve easing that has dominated financial markets for half a decade after it set out an optimistic economic outlook that would lead to the end of asset purchases in mid-2014.
Sir Brian Souter made a healthy profit from his part in a consortium which bought and sold luxury yacht-maker Sunseeker. Picture: complimentary.
Trends
| Gainers | Change | Mkt Cap | |
| MCRO | Micro Focus International plc | 9.70% | 1,060.27M |
| INF | Informa PLC | 3.33% | 2,974.96M |
| HOME | Home Retail Group Plc | 2.93% | 1,087.58M |
| TSCO | Tesco PLC | 2.69% | 27,863.03M |
| ERM | Euromoney Institutional Investor PLC | 2.67% | 1,286.13M |
| Losers | Change | Mkt Cap | |
| CPBB | Co-operative Bank plc | -5.66% | 4,100.00M |
| AGK | Aggreko plc | -5.08% | 4,466.61M |
| UU | United Utilities Group PLC | -4.42% | 4,734.52M |
| TCY | TeleCity Group Plc | -3.62% | 1,949.11M |
| SVT | Severn Trent Plc | -3.60% | 4,064.18M |
Excludes shares with mkt cap of less than �1,000M. Learn more