Wall Street has opened flat to slightly higher.

• Dow Jones up 3.5 points, or 0.01%, at 27,824.62
• Nasdaq up 3.87 points, or 0.05%, at 8,530.60
• S&P 500 up 1.5 points, or 0.05%, at 3,109.96

The FTSE 100 is now down more than 50 points, or 0.73%, at 7,209.70.

• Germany’s Dax down 0.13%
• France’s CAC down 0.19%
• Italy’s FTSE MiB down 0.09%

The Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil corporation’s upcoming stock market flotation is set to break the record for the number of banks working on a single initial public offering (IPO) this year, according to analysis by Refinitiv. They include US investment banks JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs as well as UK bank HSBC.

Saudi Aramco has hired 25 bookrunners, beating Avantor and Shanghai Henlius Biotech that each hired 15 bookrunners this year.

The Aramco syndicate is just behind the overall global record holder, Postal Savings Bank of China, which listed in 2016 with 26 bookrunners and had the most for a non-Chinese company.

Lucille Jones, analyst at Refinitiv Deals Intelligence, says:

The Saudi Aramco listing, set to be one of the largest of all-time, had investment banks competing fiercely for mandates. While the deal is not expected to be highly lucrative in terms of fees, winning a mandate on this highly coveted listing will boost their standing in equity capital market league tables.

Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman has set a $2tn valuation for Saudi Aramco, but international investors have expressed scepticism, instead estimating its value at between $1.2tn and $1.5tn, according to a poll by Bloomberg.

This week it emerged that Saudi Aramco scrapped plans for a formal investor roadshow across Asia, the US and Europe, weeks before the planned IPO on Riyadh’s Tadawul stock exchange.

Donald Trump is tweeting... he has asked the Apple boss Tim Cook whether the company can help build the telecommunications infrastructure for speedy 5G wireless networks.

Here’s a bit of good news. Hays Travel, the new owner of the collapsed Thomas Cook travel agencies, is hiring almost 1,500 new staff – in a vote of confidence in the future of the package holiday industry.

And here is our story on Royal Mail, whose shares have tumbled more than 14% to 197.72p after it warned on delays in its plans to shake up the business. It faces a long-term decline in letter volumes. It now says that strike action could tip its UK operation to a loss next year.

Meanwhile, the European Commission expressed its concern about the lack of fiscal efforts to reduce public debt levels in France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. Ordonez says:

While clarification on their 2020 budget plans were asked from these countries, we don’t think the EC will start an arm wrestle for more austerity as there are increasing calls for a more active fiscal policy across the bloc. Indeed, the Commission called once again member states with fiscal space – notably Germany and the Netherlands – to engage in a more supportive fiscal policy.

Business sentiment has stabilised in France, as the blow from the “gilets jaunes” protests faded, according to the latest Insee survey. The headline index remained stable at 105 in November, above its long-term average of 100.

Daniela Ordonez, an economist at the consultancy Oxford Ecoonmics, says:

This suggests the French economy will continue to show decent economic growth. However, no acceleration should be expected. We see French GDP growing at a cruising speed of 0.3% a quarter until the end of next year, driven by a still fairly dynamic domestic sector. However, risks are on the downside given persistent external woes and strong households’ saving intentions.

In other news … the best mince pies this year are from Marks & Spencer, according to baking experts at Which? who did a blind test of the 11 supermarket premium mince pies. Iceland is the (much cheaper) runner-up.

My colleague Patrick Collinson writes:

The best buy went to M&S Collection Mince Pies, priced at £2.50 for six. Which? experts said they had a “quintessentially Christmassy aroma”, praising the “golden, buttery pastry” and the “boozy, fruity mincemeat” and describing them as attractive-looking pies.

I’ve just sampled one myself. I concur with the judgement, although I found them a tad sweet.

Back to the UK public finances, which worsened significantly in October when borrowing surged, due to higher government spending and lower corporation and income tax receipts. Corporation tax receipts dropped by £300m while the income tax take was down £200m. However, VAT receipts and national insurance contributions increased.

Howard Archer, chief economic advisor to the EY ITEM Club forecasting group, says:

Central government receipts crept up just 0.4% year-on-year in October, consistent with the general evidence that the economy had a challenging start to the fourth quarter. The main evidence of the economy’s softness was in corporation tax receipts falling 6.2% year-on-year in October.

On the basis of April-October, public sector net borrowing is headed for £45.6bn in 2019/20 – which would be above a likely adjusted OBR forecast of around £41.0bn. However, it may well come in less than this because much of the overshoot has been due to higher public spending, which may be influenced by timing effects.

Like other economists, he says this will not deter the next government from loosening the fiscal purse strings.

The OECD said:

Global trade is stagnating and is dragging down economic activity in almost all major economies.

Here is the think tank’s growth chart for the UK.

The biennial economic outlook from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, a respected Paris-based think tank , is out.

In relation to the UK, its predicts that economic growth will slip to 1% next year from 1.2% this year even if a no-deal Brexit is avoided.

The OECD also warns that a no-deal departure would significantly damage the economy and leave the UK more exposed to a global downturn, my colleague Phillip Inman writes.

This chart from the ONS shows how the government’s borrowing in recent months compares with the Office for Budget Responsibility’s forecasts.

Torsten Bell, chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, tweets:

Wishart believes the news will not worry bond investors too much. UK government bonds are known as gilts.

We doubt the fact the deficit is on the rise again will concern gilt investors too much. The fall in long term interest rates over the past forty years means governments can now service much larger debt piles in the past.

Indeed, we doubt even Labour’s investment and nationalisation plans, which could cause the deficit to reach 5% of GDP, would lead to a large increase in the spread of gilt yields over expected short-term interest rates.

Andrew Wishart, UK economist at Capital Economics, has been quick to comment on the surge in UK government borrowing in October. He reckons increased government spending captures the cost of preparations for a potential no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

The worst October for the public finances for five years won’t prevent whoever wins the election embarking on a fiscal splurge. Borrowing appears to have been higher than expected due to Brexit preparations, and leaves the budget deficit on track to rise for the first time in a decade this year. The investment plans laid out by the major parties suggest it will rise substantially further in 2020/21.

The government borrowed £11.2bn in October, up from £8.9bn last October (consensus £9.3bn) as departmental spending on staff and goods & services rose by £2.4bn compared to a year earlier. We suspect that reflects Whitehall preparing for a possible no deal Brexit at the end of the month.

Labour plans to fund some of its spending increases by raising income tax on the highest earners, as well as reversing cuts in corporation tax made since 2010. Jeremy Corbyn will unveil Labour’s election manifesto at 11am GMT in Birmingham.

You can read more on Andrew Sparrow’s politics live blog.

Boris Johnson announced this week that a planned further cut in corporation tax had been shelved, saving some £6bn for public services, including the NHS. But he also let slip yesterday that the Conservatives intend to reduce workers’ social security contributions, by raising the national insurance threshold to £12,500.

Borrowing is likely to head even higher in the coming months and years as both main parties have pledged big increases in spending on health, schools, police and infrastructure in the run-up to the 12 December election. Brexit is also likely to have a significant negative impact on the economy, increasing the strain on the public finances.

The Resolution Foundation think tank predicts public spending will rise to its highest share of the economy since the 1970s, regardless of who wins the general election.

So this means that Britain ran up a much bigger than expected budget deficit last month – even before costly election spending pledges have been implemented.

In the seven months since the tax year began in April, the government’s borrowing was 10.3% higher than in the same period last year, at £46.3bn, the Office for National Statistics said.

A new row between Washington and Beijing over US legislation seeking to protect human rights in Hong Kong also threatens to undermine the trade negotiations.

The legislation has been passed by the House of Representatives and is expected to be signed into law by Donald Trump. It requires the State Department to certify at least once a year that Hong Kong retains enough autonomy to qualify for the special US trading consideration that helped it become a major financial centre.

Geng Shuang, spokesman at the Chinese foreign ministry, told reporters, according to Reuters:

We urge the US side to cease this activity, stop before it’s too late and take measures to prevent these measures from becoming law, stop meddling in Hong Kong’s affairs and China’s affairs.

If they must insist on going down this wrong path, China will take strong counter measures.

Gao was asked whether the main sticking points relate to Washington’s demand for China to buy more US farm goods and Beijing’s push for more tariff rollbacks. He said he did not have more information to disclose but both sides would continue to talk, and “outside rumours are not accurate,” according to Reuters.

China is still calling for the US to roll back tariffs as part of the preliminary trade agreement, CNBC reported Gao as saying.

The trade war was begun with adding tariffs, and should be ended by cancelling these additional tariffs. This is an important condition for both sides to reach an agreement.

If both sides reach a phase one agreement, the level of tariff rollback will fully reflect the importance of the phase one agreement.

ING economists Iris Pang and Robert Carnell are warning that liquidity in Hong Kong has tightened. The city’s status as a major Asian financial centre is under threat after months of pro-democracy protests have led to increasingly violent clashes between protesters and police.

The ING economists note that the violence on the streets of Hong Kong started on 12 June and has become more frequent and more extreme.

The starting point for measuring an economy’s liquidity is its interest rates. The higher the market risk, the higher the interbank interest rate, all else being equal. Pang and Cornell have benchmarked the HIBOR to the US’s interbank interest rate, LIBOR.

They note that the spread between HIBOR and LIBOR has moved from negative to positive territory since mid-June, as Hong Kong dollar interest rates have gone up, and was around 0.6 percentage points yesterday. The last time there was a large positive HIBOR-LIBOR spread was back in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis.

Compared to the spike to 10 percentage points in October 1997, the current spread is not very high. But it does indicate that liquidity is tightening in Hong Kong.

The Hong Kong dollar has strengthened in recent months, which suggests that more funds have flown into Hong Kong than out.

Pang and Cornell write:

But we need to be careful. It could be that the Alibaba IPO has masked the protest-related outflows. [The Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba raised about $11bn in a share offering in Hong Kong yesterday. The shares start trading on 26 November.]

If the HIBOR-LIBOR spread increases again, and at the same time the US dollar-Hong Kong dollar exchange rate returns to 7.85, money could indeed be moving out of Hong Kong.

As history has shown, spikes in interest rates could develop into a market panic very quickly.

In London, Royal Mail is the biggest faller on the FTSE 250. The shares tumbled more than 12% to 202.9p after the company said its transformation is behind schedule.

Royal Mail reported a fall in first-half profit before tax to £146m from £182m. Rico Back, the chief executive, warned of a tough outlook, especially for letters, even though there will be a boost from next month’s general election. The company is investing £1.8bn in an attempt to turn the business around.

Our transformation is behind schedule. We are investing more because of the industrial relations environment, the general election and Christmas, to underpin our quality of service at this key time. This is likely to impact our productivity for the remainder of the year.

People are posting fewer letters and receiving more parcels. We have to adapt to that change. The challenging financial outlook in the UK means now, more than ever before, we need to make the changes required - and accelerate them - to ensure a successful UK business.

The FTSE 100 index has slid 37 points at the open to 7,225.69, a 0.51% drop.

Germany’s Dax opened down 0.6%, France’s CAC and Spain’s Ibex fell 0.7%, Italy’s FTSE MiB lost 0.67% and Portugal’s PSI 20 slipped 0.28%.