Travel firms, car sales and Facebook (NYSE:FB.) were among the eclectic topics bidding to brighten up a grey Guy Fawkes day.
Rather in the same way that Mr Fawkes and his fellow Gunpowder plotters' plans were stamped out in swift and ignominious fashion after what had been a long, intricate and arguably "successful" campaign, so bosses at Volkswagen may be looking at what went so wrong.
Shares in the global car giant crashed yesterday as it emerged that the emissions scandal had deepened - as it admitted problems with 800,000 further vehicles in Europe - and not just diesels.
Car sales from VW fell last month by 8.9% as customers were put off buying from the German auto giant.
Official figures also showed that UK car sales last month fell by 1.1%, after run of 43 months of consecutive growth.
Speaking of growth, social network giant and the brain child of billionaire Mark Zuckerberg reported an 11% increase in third-quarter earnings last night and revealed the site now averages 1bn users a day.
Notably, Facebook is also preparing to launch its equivalent of Apple's News app - to be called Notify - next week, according to reports.
Travel firms were losing ground today after the UK government moved to action, suspending flights from the Egyptian resort of Sharma el-Sheikh after revealing it may have been an explosive that brought down the Russian passenger jet.
Thomas Cook (LON:TCG) shares eased 5.87% to 113.0p, while TUI AG shed almost 2%. Thomas Cook revealed it has cancelled its flights and holiday programme to the resort until November 12.
Elsewhere, the supermarket landscape was back in focus as Morrison's (LON:MRW), posted a bigger-than-expected fall in third quarter sales but said it was on track to hit annual profit targets.
Morrisons said total sales excluding fuel fell 2% and dropped 4.6% including fuel in the 13 weeks to November 1.
Like-for-like sales dipped 2.6% and were down 5.1% including fuel. Shares eased 3.66% to 171p, while peer Tesco (LON:TSCO) fell 0.95%. Sainsbury's (LON:SBRY) lost 0.22% to 276.4p.