The Bank of England is working on radical plans to inject cash directly into the economy as a last resort to reverse a slide into recession, a newspaper reported on Friday.
The FTSE 100 <.FTSE> index is seen opening down as much as 1.4 percent on Friday, according to financial bookmakers, tracking weakness in the U.S. markets on disappointing profit outlooks from large companies.
The chief executives of General Motors and Chrysler said they would consider restarting merger talks if needed to win their slice of up to $34 billion (23.2 billion pounds) in emergency U.S. government aid.
The Co-operative Group said on Thursday it had found buyers for 24 stores as part of the regulatory approval process for its purchase of rival food retailer Somerfield.
The number of U.S. workers collecting jobless benefits hit a 26-year high last month, data showed on Thursday, and it may head higher as a deepening economic slump forces a broad spectrum of firms to cut jobs.
The European Central Bank made its biggest ever cut to interest rates on Thursday, lowering benchmark credit costs by 75 basis points as it forecast a gloomy year ahead for the recession-bound euro zone economy.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Starbucks <SBUX.O>, whose sales are slowing as U.S. consumers buy fewer premium coffee drinks, said on Thursday it does not expect to meet Wall Street estimates for the current quarter and would double its cost cuts for the full year.
Entrepreneur Theo Paphitis said on Thursday he had pulled out of the running to buy Woolworths' <WLW.L> sweets-to-DVDs retail business, but talks between the administrators, Deloitte, and other suitors are continuing.