1. Pinch and a punch for the first of the month
‘Bleak Friday’ has arrived and plunged 2.5mln households into ‘fuel stress’ after a significantly hiked energy price cap.
2. Has Barclays' bean counter had his chips?
Barclays' disastrous mistake with a structured finance product continues to reverberate around the bank with calls now for finance director Tushar Morzaria to have part of his bonus annulled.
3. FTSE holds on to gains after US jobs report disappoints only slightly
The FTSE 100 index closed 22.22 points or 0.30% higher at 7,537.90 on Friday. James Knightley, the chief international economist at ING, said it was a solid jobs update that would justify swift interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve. Traders in London yawned and went back to checking the weather report.
4. Vodafone, the wallflower, set to suffer from increased energy costs
Deutsche Bank was the latest broker to highlight the energy cost headache that the mobile phone network operator faces
5. Binance verdict encouraging for other cryptocurrency exchanges
Binance, the cryptocurrency exchange, had a class-action lawsuit against it dismissed by a US federal judge. Similar lawsuits have been filed against other cryptocurrency exchanges, with Coinbase currently engaged in a legal battle for allegedly operating as an unregistered securities exchange in the US.