Ouch - RSA and Volkswagen both got blasted

There are two huge stories in Europe today - RSA Insurance and Volkswagen.

Shares in RSA nosedived after Zurich called off plans to buy RSA in a £5.5 billion ($8.5 billion) deal. That's after Zurich suffered big losses from the huge Chinese factory explosion in August - it needs to sort out its own house.

RSA ended a crazy 21.3% lower than it started the day.

Zurich, meanwhile, only fell 2.5% on the Swiss stock exchange. The Swiss insurance giant didn't exactly pop when the deal was first announced and has been falling ever since.Despite RSA's big drop, the FTSE 100 just about managed to hang on to gains, ending the day up 0.08%, or 4.60 points at 6.108.71.

Meanwhile, Volkswagen shares have tanked 17.9% in Frankfurt after it emerged that some of its emissions data was falsified.

Apart from these two big movers, most of Europe is quietly optimistic on Monday - Germany's DAX is up 0.56%, France's CAC-40 is 1.29% higher, and the Euro Stoxx 50 is up 1.10%.