Good morning. FTSE 100 futures are pointing 0.3pc lower this morning, after Asian markets mostly sank again as fears over China’s regulatory crackdown continued to reverberate through the region.
Barclays is the first in a series of blue-chip banks reporting half-year results this week. The bank said pre-tax profits soared to £5bn, compared with the £4.1bn that analysts had forecast.
The nearly four-fold increase from the same period last year came as Barclays released impairment cash – money it had reserved during last year’s uncertainty to cover the costs of loans that might turn bad.
5 things to start your day
1) Morrisons’ biggest investor will not support takeover deal: Silchester says there is ‘little in the recommended offer that could not be achieved by Morrisons as a listed company’.
2) Apple, Google and Microsoft post another quarter of record profits: Apple’s net income came in at $21.7bn for the three months to the end of June, almost double the figure from the same quarter a year earlier.
3) Cobham offers separate US-UK boards to win control of Ultra…
