Yes, it’s Budget day.
The city remained calm ahead of Chancellor George Osborne’s announcement as the FTSE 100 stayed relatively flat this morning.
But you could hear the devastated wail of school children (and teachers) across the country after Osborne extended the school day by an extra hour.
For parents, the extra hour a day of child-free time is sure to offset austerity woes.
The chancellor will also announce an extra £1.5bn of funding which will be pumped into education, promising to transform every school into an academy by 2020.
The National Union of Teachers called the move a “step towards the privatisation of schools”.
The Budget is due at 12.30pm today.
For those who prefer a quicker and simpler way to lose their money, it is day two of the Cheltenham races.
Festival officials cancelled a booking from a sports management company after photos emerged of footballers throwing cups of urine off a balcony.
MK Dons midfielder Samir Carruthers was snapped peeing into a glass as fellow footballers looked on. No doubt standard league behaviour, but at Cheltenham: heavens no.
The football clubs involved are currently commencing internal investigations.
After buying out the late Michael Jackson’s 50% share in ATV music publishing, today the Sony entertainment group announced the release date of its virtual reality headset.
The Playstation VR will be launched in October this year and with a relatively inclusive price tag of £349, it undercuts HTC headset by almost a half.
The headset is also cheaper than VR pioneer Oculus’s headset, due for release later this year, and console rival Xbox One.
Elsewhere, the London Stock Exchange and the Deustche Börse finally agree on the terms of a £20bn merger.
Deustche Börse shareholders will own 54.4% of the new company.
They expect to cut costs by £354mln a year, equally 20% of their combined operating costs.
Professor John Colley of Warwick Business School was sceptical however:
"While promoted as a 'merger of equals' with top jobs respectively filled by a balance of directors from both businesses, in practice such arrangements rarely work.”
AIM-listed Forbidden Technologies (LON:FBT) soared 40% after it agreed a deal with Microsoft to sell its Forscene platform.
The deal with will see Forbidden’s cloud video editing software sold through Microsoft’s online store, the Azure Marketplace.
Meanwhile, Sports Direct (LON:SPD) boss Mike Ashley could be jailed for contempt of parliament as he continued to refuse to appear before MPs.
Ashley was criticised for the treatment of employees at the Sports Direct warehouse in Derbyshire.
Workers said they were too scared to take sick leave and ambulances had to be called to the warehouse 76 times in two years.
No doubt Ashley was too busy licking his wounds from Newcastle’s defeat by Leicester on Monday.