Back to currencies. US president Donald Trump has tweeted

Bookmaker Betway has suspended betting on the next governor of the Bank of England after a flurry of bets on Andrew Bailey. The next governor, who will succeed Mark Carney in June 2019, is expected to be announced towards the end of the year.

Bailey, the chief executive of the Financial Conduct Authority had been relatively unfancied at 9/1, but the online bookie received a sudden influx of bets on him succeeding Carney and has suspended betting as a result.

Bailey had been tipped by City economists as the most likely candidate to succeed Carney.

Betway’s Alan Alger said:

There had been some speculation that Andrew Bailey was a leading candidate to replace Mark Carney as the new Governor of the Bank of England and in the last few days we’ve seen huge support for him taking the role.

The current Chief Executive of the Financial Conduct Authority was available at 9/1, but as a result of the weight of support towards him, we’ve had no choice but to suspend the market.

Octavio Marenzi, CEO of capital markets management at consultancy Opimas, has sent us his thoughts on Bank of America’s first-quarter results.

We are seeing a very favorable environment for banking currently and Bank of America’s earnings reflect this. Overall, BofA’s results are good, and pushed RoE [return on equity] above 10%, even if they are not as strong as arch-rival JPMorgan’s.

Consumer Banking and Wealth Management registered solid, sustainable growth in revenues. However, investment banking fees pulled Global Banking into slightly negative territory. BofA’s results in fixed-income trading were not as strong as we expected and declined compared to Q1 last year, but handily beat the last quarter of 2017.

Connor Campbell, financial analyst at Spreadex, has looked at the Footsie.

The FTSE was dealing with duel pressures this Monday, both in its commodity sector losses and the success of sterling.

While the rest of the markets held strong, the FTSE dropped 35 points to send it towards a one week low. Part of that decline is being informed by the chunky drop suffered by BP and Shell, which slipped 1.5% and 0.8% respectively. That’s because Brent Crude itself fell 1.2%, the black stuff in retreat in response following the contrast between the actually military engagement seen in Syria over the weekend and the supply-worrying rhetoric used by Trump last week.

But that’s not the only thing upsetting the FTSE – the index also had to deal with the pound’s latest increase. Against the dollar sterling shot up half a percent, sending cable above $1.43 to its highest price in almost a year and a half. The currency was less robust against the euro, and even then it lifted it towards a fresh 11 month peak.

Turning to this afternoon and the US open may inject a bit more positivity into a fairly stagnant session. The Dow Jones is expected to surge 150 points after the bell, a move that would lift the index back above 24500. As for data, the focus will be on retail sales, with analysts expecting a rise from -0.1% to 0.4% month-on-month.

The US is due to announce new economic sanctions against Russia today aimed at companies that are believed to be involved in equipment linked to chemical weapons, according to Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the United Nations.

The EU has already imposed a range of economic sanctions on the Assad regime, cutting off most diplomatic and economic sanctions, but with very limited impact.

Russia is Europe’s biggest energy supplier. While the EU imposed sanctions against Moscow over the crisis in Ukraine, it is cautious about new punitive measures.

It appears unlikely that the European Union will join the US in imposing new sanctions on Russia or Syria over the chemical weapons attack that prompted the first co-ordinated western air strikes in Syria at the weekend.

EU foreign ministers are putting the emphasis on diplomacy at a meeting in Luxembourg.

Dutch foreign minister Stef Blok, who met his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow on Friday, told reporters as he arrived at the meeting today:

We have to keep pushing to get a ceasefire and humanitarian aid through the [UN] Security Council and eventually a peace process.

The only solution is a peace process through the Security Council.

British foreign secretary Boris Johnson told reporters:

It is very important to stress [the strikes are] not an attempt to change the tide of the war in Syria or to have a regime change.

I’m afraid the Syrian war will go on its horrible, miserable way. But it was the world saying that we’ve had enough of the use of chemical weapons.

Sterling has touched an intra-day high of $1.4304 against the dollar, up 0.5%, the highest level since 25 January.

Stock market futures are still suggesting a higher open on Wall Street, with the Dow and the S&P 500 seen opening 0.6% while the Nasdaq is expected to rise 0.7%.

The EU has called on Russia and Iran to use their influence on the Syrian government to prevent it from using chemical weapons again.

The EU said in comments released to a meeting of the global chemical weapons watchdog, seen by Reuters:

The EU calls upon all countries, notably Russia and Iran, to use their influence to prevent any further use of chemical weapons, notably by the Syrian regime.

And here is our story on Wetherspoon closing all its social media accounts, a move that has been met with scepticism. Matthew Weaver writes:

The pub chain’s decision was reportedly in response to the trolling of some MPs, but many commentators suspected it was a publicity stunt by the chairman, Tim Martin.

Commercial real estate agency and consultancy Colliers International says 15 major UK retailers or restaurant groups have gone into CVA (company voluntary arrangement) or administration in the past 12 months.

Colliers has calculated that around 12,000 jobs have been lost or are on the line. The most recent business failure was Conviviality, the company behind Bargain Booze and Wine Rack.

We wonder how many more retailers are going to get into trouble or people lose their jobs before someone decides to tackle the problem properly.

John Webb, head of business rates at Colliers, says:

These figures are as bad, if not worse than the crash of 2008/9 when 16 companies went into administration- 12 in 2008 and 4 in 2009- and we are only in April now.

Data from Visa card released overnight shows a steep fall in consumers on Britain’s high streets in March. The number of people visiting UK shops dropped 6% compared with the same month last year, the biggest fall in shopper numbers since the end of 2010.

On currency markets, the dollar is struggling. It is flat against a broad basket of major currencies but has weakened 0.3% so far this month, and lost 2.5% since the start of the year.

The euro is steady, trading at around $1.23.

Manuel Oliveri, currency strategist at Crédit Agricole, told Reuters:

The military strikes were well telegraphed and we are seeing a continuation in the broad market theme from lat week of a weaker dollar and favourable conditions for risk taking.

European stock markets have given up some of their earlier gains.

• FTSE 100 index down 0.14% at 7254.60
  
• Germany’s Dax up 0.12% at 12,457.13
  
• France’s CAC up 0.03% at 5316.83
  
• Italy’s FTSE MiB up 0.17% at 23,369.72
  
• Spain’s Ibex up 0.19% at 9785.50
  

Shire’s sale of its oncology business includes leukaemia therapy Oncaspar, the rights to pancreatic cancer treatment Onyvyde outside the US and other drugs in development.

Jefferies analysts Peter Welford, David Steinberg and Lucy Codrington believe the deal will boost Shire’s negotiating position in any talks with Japan’s biggest drugmaker Takeda, which has disclosed that it is considering a bid.

We see the possible strategic fit given the company’s focus therapeutic areas of oncology, gastrointestinal and neuroscience, with Shire bolstering the latter two franchises. Furthermore, Shire’s leading global position in rare diseases would likely be attractive for most large pharma/biotech, particularly given the long duration assets in immunoglobulin and enzyme replacement therapy

Takeda’s current market value is around $37bn, down 6% since disclosing its interest in Shire, against the London-listed company’s $47bn.

The Jefferies analysts say:

Hence, we presume Takeda would need a significant equity raise to acquire Shire, suggesting a “merger” is perhaps better terminology, which may raise hurdles to the successful completion of any future deal.

Analysts are cautious about whether WPP will be broken up, now that Sorrell is gone. Citi analysts Thomas Singlehurst and Catherine O’Neill reckon the main question is whether a new WPP chief executive goes for a “quick fix” or sticks with the existing “slow fix”.

In the last year, WPP has been seen by many to be losing its way. Against the backdrop of an improving macro environment, organic growth has been slowing. In practice this slowdown has been happening for years and has a multitude of explanatory factors. Anyone coming in to take over the CEO role at WPP will be entirely focused on turning this round. The debate is now whether a new CEO goes for a Quick Fix vs. (the existing) Slow Fix.

Paul Richards, media analyst at Numis, says Sorrell will be hard to replace with one person.

The succession has led to questions over the size and scope of WPP and we can see a change of management accelerating the current process of reducing overlap and increasing flexibility.

Richards views Sorrell’s resignation as “tragic end to a remarkable career which saw the creation of WPP as a global leader in marcoms [marketing communications]”.

WPP has bought other holding companies (Y&R, Grey, Cordiant) as well as agencies and accordingly has grown to employ over 200,000 people in 400 businesses across 3,000 offices in 112 countries. In response to industry pressures including clients in-sourcing activity, pressure on CPG and structural challenges from the duopoly of Facebook & Google, WPP was already working to simplify its business and increase flexibility.

We expect a new CEO to continue and accelerate this process and a strategic review could lead to the group slimming its operations by a quarter to a third in our view.

WPP is due to report first-quarter results on 30 April.

Sorrell is free to start a new advertising venture because he has never had a non-compete agreement, the Financial Times reports.

In a farewell note to staff, Sir Martin underscored the role WPP had played in his career, saying the company was “not just a matter of life or death, it was, is and will be more important than that”. He also hinted at his next step when he signed off saying: “Back to the future.”

WPP shares dropped as much as 5% in early trading and are now down 1.7% at £11.67, with investors worried that Sorrell’s departure leaves the world’s biggest advertising group rudderless at a time when it might be broken up.

European stock markets have opened higher, apart from the London stock market which has slipped slightly.

• UK’s FTSE 100 index down 0.12%
  
• Germany’s Dax up 0.27%
  
• France’s CAC flat
  
• Italy’s FTSE MiB up 0.13%
  
• Spain’s Ibex up 0.08%
  

Shares in Whitbread have surged nearly 8%, replacing Shire as the top riser on the FTSE 100 index in early trading. Whitbread is under mounting pressure from hedge funds to break up its business by spinning off the Costa Coffee chain, after activist investor Elliott Advisors built up a stake of more than 6%.

Shares in Shire have opened 2.6% on the news, making it the biggest riser on the FTSE 100.

Shares in WPP have dropped 5% after the departure of chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Following another week of gains last week, with Germany’s Dax and the UK’s FTSE 100 index hitting six-week highs on Friday, European stock markets are set to open higher today. US stock futures are also up, pointing to a higher open on Wall Street later.

Asian markets were mixed. The Nikkei in Tokyo closed 0.26% higher while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng was 1.7% lower.

There is relief that western missile strikes on Syria on Friday did not prompt a response from Russia, Syria’s main ally, although traders will be watching cautiously for any signs of escalation of the conflict.

Oil prices are slipping, with Brent crude in London down 1% to $71.83 a barrel while US crude is 0.9% lower at $66.79 a barrel.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, says:

One of the main concerns last week was around the extent of the response by the US backed coalition on president Assad of Syria’s forces and any Russian reaction to it. The firing of over 100 cruise missiles over the weekend on various targets, with little in the way of casualties, appears to be tempered with relief that while it may reduce the risk of an escalation in the short term, it in no way means that we might not get a counter response further down the line. As such markets here in Europe look set to open cautiously higher this morning after shares traded slightly firmer in Asia.

The US also appears to be complementing its military approach by focusing on the additional sanctions route, after UN ambassador Nikki Haley announced that further sanctions were being discussed on Russian companies who have dealings with Assad and the use of chemical weapons, with details likely to be announced by US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin later today.

Geopolitical developments and corporate earnings remain the main focus, in the absence of major economic news apart from US retail sales data for March, out at 13:30 BST.

In the UK, we will get the latest labour market stats tomorrow, followed by inflation on Wednesday and retail sales on Thursday, but today the calendar is barren. The International Monetary Fund holds its spring meetings of central bankers and finance ministers in Washington this week.

The main corporate news at the weekend was the resignation of WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell. He is leaving the advertising group he founded more than three decades ago ahead of the findings of an investigation into alleged personal misconduct. He is in line for almost £20m in payouts. His departure is seen as paving the way for a breakup of WPP.

Here’s a round-up of today’s front pages.