Economics / Markets

Prime Minister David Cameron has been accused of revealing that tomorrow's GDP figure will meet positive expectations, in an apparent slip-up that could have breached the embargo on the official data.

Brewin Dolphin has announced that David McCorkell, head of investment management, is to retire from the company.

Investors across Europe and the US are in flight-mode this afternoon, with US markets opening sharply lower as the weak corporate earnings season continues to plague sentiment.

The senior regulator who will be in charge of supervising banks has warned that institutions will still be allowed to fail, despite more rigorous oversight of the businesses under the new regime.

Consumers will go on spending more money on non-essentials if inflation continues to drop, a senior economist has said.

FIVE THINGS

Cheshire-based financial advisory group Perspective is understood to have put itself up for sale ahead of the Retail Distribution Review (RDR).

The double-dip recession which has plagued the UK for the first half of 2012 should officially end later this week, economists are predicting, as the impact of the Olympics and the Jubilee kick-in.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) "should and could" have intervened in the Royal Bank of Scotland's (RBS's) ill-fated acquisition of ABN Amro, a damning report by the Treasury Committee concludes.

Rowanmoor Group has reported its largest yearly increase in scheme take-up in its six years of trading.