Not that many people were expecting Saudi Arabia and Iran to say anything else, but both say they will not reduce oil output.
Saudi Arabia, not mentioning any fellow oil producer in particular, said it would not lower production as it did not trust other oil exporters to follow suit.
Iran, one of those fellow oil producers not mentioned by Saudi Arabia, has poured cold water on the idea of an output freeze proposal put forward by Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Iranian oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said the idea was “ridiculous”, and you can see his point as his country has only just started cranking up oil production after years of sanctions against it by the Western powers.
“Brent Crude kept falling this morning, sliding to its lowest price in around a week with the latest US oil crude inventories data still to come,” noted Connor Campbell, of Spreadex.
Best hold off from filling up the ol' petrol tank for a bit longer if you can.
If you can't, try to resist bagging a choccie bar as you go to pay for your petrol because, as you might have heard, US confectionery giant Mars has possibly gone a bit far with the artificial colouring in is chocolate bars.
Headline writers the world over are giving thanks to whichever deities they habitually pray to, as Mars revealed it had recalled Mars bars and Snickers bars in 55 countries after what it called “an isolated incident” of an unlisted bonus ingredient – red plastic – being found in a Snickers bar in Germany.
That'll teach them to change the name from Marathon to Snickers, although the goo-bar has, I believe, always been known as Snickers in countries other than Britain.
Presumably the decision not to originally go with the name Snickers in Britain was because it sounds like a term for a lady's undergarments.
We do not “snicker” in Britain, we “snigger”, but for obvious reasons calling a chocolate bar Sniggers is a bit of a non-starter.
Other memorable brand name cop-outs included Cif, which was originally called Jif because Cif is slang for a particularly unpleasant sexually transmitted disease, and Oil of Olay, which was originally called Oil of Ulay in Britain, presumably because the makers of the moisturising cream did not want to be considered the first choice of skin treatment by matadors.
Or something.
Pond's Cold Cream never had any problems with people thinking it was a dollop of white stuff that you should put in the fish pool in the back garden, but perhaps marketing people believe it is never unwise to underestimate the perspicacity of the British public.
Talking of which, what did happen to the dog named Isis in Downton Abbey?
Before this turns into a marketing blog, let's have a quick butcher's at the small-cap stories that are intriguing investors, starting with Tristel (LON:TSTL), the infection prevention specialist whose shares have taken a bath this morning.
Pour quoi?
The house broker, finnCap, said the interim results were slightly ahead of the performance flagged last month at the January annual general meeting, but what appears to have spooked the market is the need to increase the investment in research & development in order to boost the chances of its products securing regulatory approval in the US.
Nudging up a bit is First Property (LON:FPO), the property fund manager and property investor, which has secured a UK fund management contract extension.
It has been extended by five years to 5 February, 2022, which sounds like a marathon contract … but not a snickers.