Economics / Markets

Apple shares hit a new record of almost $681 a share in US trading overnight as investors continued to digest the fallout from a $1bn patent lawsuit.

HSBC is in talks to settle with US regulators over a money laundering investigation, but increased regulatory scrutiny has led to S&P cutting the bank's credit rating.

Bank of England monetary policy committee member Martin Weale has said he would prefer a base rate cut to further quantitative easing, were the Bank to unveil more stimulus measures.

The Office for National Statistics has revised up its estimate of second quarter growth from a 0.7% contraction to a fall of 0.5%.

Official GDP figures for the second quarter will be revised later today after better-than expected construction and industrial production figures.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) will be hit with greater fines than Barclays over the LIBOR-fixing scandal, a member of the Treasury select committee has claimed.

Pensioners are being left "permanently impoverished" by quantitative easing (QE) and analysis from the Bank of England (BoE) denying negative impacts is wrong, Ros Altmann has said.

The spot price of gold climbed by over 1% to $1,655 an ounce as the Federal Reserve said it is likely to ease monetary policy soon unless there is a sharp change in economic data.

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