Market overview: Euro slips further, undermines Brent

1634: The drop in the single currency continues to accelerate. It is now off by 1.29% to 1.0711.That, in turn, is weighing on front month Brent crude oil futures, which are losing 2.01% to hit $56.82 per barrel.

1445: Analysts at Deutsche Bank now see the euro/dollar dropping to parity this year, instead of 1.05 as it had previously estimated.

1442: Bank of England Governor Mark Carney has reportedly testified to the House of Lords that inflation in the UK will fall to zero in coming months and remain at that level for the rest of the current year.

1425: Job openings in the US rose 2.4% to 5m in January, reaching a 14-year high, according to the Labor Department. Official figures showed that the number of people hired fell marginally to 5m, while separations – which include layoffs, workers who quit and who are fired – dropped from 4.90m to 4.82m.

1300: Broker Charles Stanley says it has entered into exclusive negotiations to sell its securities arm. According to sources cited by Sky News’s Mark Kleinman US broker Stifel Financial’s bid was the most likely to be successful.

1155: The yield on 10-year Greek sovereign bonds has turned higher and is now rising by 10 basis points to reach 10.22%.

1145: In the metals market, copper prices are slumping 2.2% while palladium is off by 1.1% and platinum is down 0.8%. All of the above is weighing on the shares of commodity producers.

1030: The Dow Jones Industrials is now being called to start the session lower by 133 points at 17,862, CMC Markets's Jasper Lawler points out.

0952: As grocery deflation sank to -1.6% for the 12-week stretch to 2 March, Tesco's market share increased to 28.8% from 28.7% in the year-ago period, according to the latest figures from Kantar Worldpanel. Aldi and Lidl lost market share.

0951: The mooted £2bn initial public offering of Wood Mackenzie will no longer go ahead afetr the company was snapped up by Verisk Analytics. As an aside, it has just transpired that Markit has made off with Lloyds's Halifax House Price Index.

0846: The euro/dollar is now down one per cent to approximately 1.0740.

0841: Greek 10-year sovereign bond yields are moving modestly lower as are those for the core economies. The yield on 30-year French government debt is down by four basis points at the time of writing. There is some market chatter regarding the book-building which is in process for the upcoming Auto Trader IPO. "Books covered on 50% free float base deal throughout range....," one sell-side broker says.

0810: Stocks have begun the day lower despite overnight gains on Wall Street. Miners were expected to weigh at the start of trading given recent weakness in the commodities complex. Prudential was knocked after news that rival Credit Suisse has poached Tidjane Thiam as its new chief executive officer. Shares in the latter were higher by 7.4% in early trading. HSBC was moving up the leaderboard on the heels of an upgrade out of analysts at Goldman Sachs. FTSE 100 down 15 to 6,861.78.