REUTERS/Rebecca Naden
A man and a child stand on the harbour wall during stormy conditions at Porthcawl, South Wales, December 6, 2015.
The oil market is out of whack and Goldman Sachs doesn't see this situation sorting itself out for another year. In a note to clients on Friday following OPEC's latest production announcement, Goldman's Damien Courvalin wrote that the oil market's supply-and-demand balance won't be restored until the fourth quarter of 2016 at the earliest.
Crude prices are down in the first trading session after OPEC-members failed to agree on output targets to reduce a bulging glut that has resulted in oil prices falling by more than 60% since June 2014. US crude was trading at $39.58 (£26.21) a barrel at 00.38 a.m. GMT (7.38 p.m. ET), down 39 cents (26p). Internationally traded Brent futures were down 16 cents (11p) at $42.84 (£28.37) per barrel. This left both benchmarks near 2015 lows and not far off levels seen during the peak of the global financial crisis of 2008/2009.
Mark Carney is speaking in Brussels today. The Bank of England governor is due to appear before the European Parliament's economics committee at 3.00 p.m. GMT (10.00 a.m. ET).
Asian markets are buoyant, thanks to Friday's better than expected jobs report from the US. Japan's Nikkei is up 0.99% at time of writing (6.33 a.m. GMT/1.33 a.m. ET), China's Shanghai Composite is down 0.03%, and the Hong Kong Hang Seng is up 0.25%.
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday unveiled a A$1.1 billion (£533.6 million, $806 million) package to boost innovation, using his first major economic policy statement since becoming leader to map out a pathway beyond the country's fading resources boom. The plan's incentives include reductions in the capital gains tax for startups, generous income tax rebates for retail investors, changes to bankruptcy laws to encourage more risk-taking by entrepreneurs and immigration changes to lure top talent.
Fifty individual shareholders of Toshiba sued the Japanese conglomerate in Tokyo on Monday, seeking 301.99 million yen (£1.62 million, $2.45 million) in damages after the firm's stock plunged in the wake of a multi-billion dollar accounting scandal. The lawsuit against the company, as well as three former chief executives and two chief financial officers, comes as Toshiba shares hover about 40% lower than their value before the company questioned its accounting in early April.
The president of one of China's "big four" state-owned banks has resigned for personal reasons, the Agricultural Bank of China said, after reports he had been taken away in a corruption investigation. The bank said Zhang Yun had stepped down in a statement to the Hong Kong stock exchange, where it is listed.
Shares in Australian company Broadspectrum soared on Monday after Spanish construction giant Ferrovial returned for a second tilt at the services provider, a year after an initial bid was knocked back. Madrid-listed Ferrovial had offered A$2.0 a share in October last year, valuing Broadspectrum, then known as Transfield Services, at around A$1.0 billion (£485.3 million, US$733 million), but it was rejected as poor value. Now it has returned with a new all-cash A$1.35 a share offer.
A fresh furore over Britain's tax rules has erupted after it emerged that the American giant that swallowed up Cadbury is not paying
Qatar, the third-largest shareholder in Volkswagen, is urging the German carmaker to reduce the influence of its powerful trade unions as it battles to overcome its emissions scandal, a German newspaper reported on Sunday. Bild am Sonntag, without citing sources, said the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) would use a meeting on Sunday with VW Chief Executive Matthias Mueller and other top players in the firm to demand a scaling back of the role of the works council.