It’s a few minutes until Wall Street begins its week, and it looks like shares are going to follow the risk-on lead from the rest of the world’s major stock indices.

Futures trades suggest the S&P 500 benchmark will gain 0.9%, while the Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq could jump by 1% at the opening bell.

Microsoft has joined the court battle between Apple and Epic Games, filing a legal brief supporting the Fortnite developer’s right to carry on developing software for Mac and iOS while the case continues.

The submission, signed by Kevin Gammill, the executive in charge of supporting developers on Microsoft’s Xbox console, is further evidence that the lawsuit over in-app purchases in Fortnite is set to become a proxy war over the future of the App Store.

Gammill wrote:

Epic Games’ Unreal Engine is critical technology for numerous game creators including Microsoft. Apple’s discontinuation of Epic’s ability to develop and support Unreal Engine for iOS or macOS will harm game creators and gamers.

You can read the full report here:

Britons’ spending on subscription services - including meal kits and video streaming packages - soared during lockdown, as consumers paid for entertainment while confined to their homes.

Spending on subscriptions rose by 39.4% for the year to July, according to data from credit card firm Barclaycard Payments.

Their research into credit and debit card data showed that the average Briton spends £46 on subscriptions per month, a figure which is rapidly rising, and that almost two-thirds (65%) of UK homes are signed up to subscription services.

The subscription economy in the UK, covering payments for items such as magazines, groceries and home entertainment, is now estimated to be worth about £323m.

If the Brent crude futures price gains another cent to the $46.23 per barrel mark it will represent the highest level since early March - in a sign that investors believe the worst of the economic turmoil has hit.

The latest price of the North Sea benchmark, at $44.82, is almost triple the lowest level hit in April (when the North American counterpart contract, West Texas Intermediate, briefly but dramatically turned negative). However, it is still far below the $70 per barrel mark hit in early January - an indication of the expectations of slower economic output for a while yet.

The FTSE 100 rally is showing no signs of letting up: London’s blue chips have now gained 1.9% today.

It reflects a general positive mood on global stock markets after the US approved a blood plasma treatment for Covid-19. In the absence of much other data investors are in risk-on mode.

In France the Cac 40 is up by 2.4%, and in Germany the Dax is up by 2.6%.

Joshua Mahony, senior market analyst at IG, a spreadbetting company, said:

European markets have kicked off the week in style, with the FDA’s decision to approve the convalescent plasma coronavirus treatment raising hopes that we could see a vaccine fast-tracked before long.

With the US election looming large for Donald Trump, we are likely to continue seeing a proactive approach from the president as he seeks to expedite the provision of treatments and vaccines in a bid to overcome this virus before the polls open in November.

Rio Tinto executives will pay for the destruction of an Aboriginal heritage site in Australia - but they will still keep their jobs.

Rio Tinto chief executive Jean-Sébastien Jacques has lost almost $5m in bonuses and the head of Rio Tinto’s Australian iron ore group will lose more than $1m over the destruction of a 46,000-year-old Aboriginal heritage site at Juukan Gorge, after an internal review found “systemic failures in the cultural heritage management system”.

The mining company destroyed two rock shelters in Juukan Gorge in the Pilbara region of Western Australia on 24 May, despite having received five separate reports on the significance of the sites, both archeologically and to the local Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) people, since 2013.

You can read the full report here:

With two bits of good news for the retail sector, should we be counting on a V-shaped recovery for the economy?

At first glance, the Springboard footfall figures are support that impression, according to James Smith, developed markets economist at ING, an investment bank. However, dig a little deepper and the numbers “reveal consumers are still cautious about returning to the high street”.

He gives three reasons why caution is warranted about interpreting the figures:

1. “Unsurprisingly, online sales have been the major ‘winner’ from lockdown, and remain 44% higher than they were at the turn of the year,” he said. “The flip side is sales at many traditional retailers are still well down on pre-virus levels.”
2. “The effect of pent-up demand appears to be fading,” he said, as evidenced by Bank of England payments data which spiked as the lockdown eased but appears to be tapering (see chart).
   
3. “It’s worth remembering that retail sales are only one part of the story - and spending on services (restaurants, hospitality etc) have also been hard-hit,” he said. The eat out to help out shceme will have boosted takings, but that will end soon - although it could help to make consumers more willing to spend again.

If the UK had Dominic Cummings’s Barnard Castle eye test, Ireland has perhaps outdone it with “golfgate”, a controversy that has already claimed a minister and has the EU’s powerful trade commissioner, Phil Hogan, under serious pressure.

Hogan, who plays a key role in trade talks including on Brexit, yesterday apologised for attending the 80-person dinner - contravening social distancing rules - but has made it clear he doesn’t want to resign. It also emerged that police had cautioned him for using a phone while driving.

However, the pressure is mounting. European Commission prseident Ursula von der Leyen has asked him to report to her, and Taoiseach Micheál Martin on Monday called on Hogan to clarify how he did not breach lockdown rules.

Martin on Monday said Hogan needed to give a full account of his movements through locked down Country Kildare, given there was a discrepancy between the commissioner’s public statements on the issue, according to Reuters.

“I need absolute ... the public needs absolute assurances that the restrictions that were imposed in Kildare were not breached. That to me would be very, very serious indeed,” Martin, who called for Hogan to consider his position on Saturday, told national broadcaster RTE.

Bunzl, a distributor of products such as medical supplies and food packaging, is the second biggest riser on the FTSE 100 (after BT) after reinstating its dividend.

The company felt comfortable giving payouts to investors again after demand for facemasks and other hygiene supplies pushed up profits.

However, it is one of the few companies giving income investors a reason to go to work: overall the amount paid out by big companies to their investors plummeted between April and June as firms cancelled or cut their dividends to conserve cash during the coronavirus pandemic crisis.

Total shareholder payouts made globally slumped by $108.1bn (£82.6bn) to $382.2bn, a fall of 22%, writes the Guardian’s Joanna Partridge.

A quarter (27%) of companies expected to pay a dividend in the second quarter slashed their payments, while half of that group cancelled the payout altogether.

Analysts at the asset manager Janus Henderson studied dividends paid by the world’s 1,200 largest companies, and found the largest quarterly drop in their global dividend index since its creation at the end of 2009 following the global financial crisis.

You can read the full report on the dividend slump here:

At the middle of the morning it is turning into a pleasant day for investors on the FTSE 100: the index has now gained 1.9%, or 112 points, to hit 6,114.

Only six companies have lost ground, illustrating the broad risk-on sentiment thanks in part to the US approval of a treatment for Covid-19 using the blood plasma of recovered patients.

Across Europe the Stoxx 600 is up 1.7%. Germany’s Dax and France’s Cac 40 benchmark are up 2.1%.

Pearson, the education publisher, has appointed former Disney executive Andy Bird as its new chief executive as it continues to move towards digital sales.

Bird was appointed to the Pearson board on 1 May, and will take over as chief executive on 19 October.

Bird was previously chairman of Walt Disney International, responsible for the expanding the company’s businesses outside of the US.

Pearson will pay Bird base salary and payments in lieu of a pension of $1.45m per year, although from 2021 he will be eligible for bonus payments of as much as $2.5m

Before Disney, Bird worked at AOL Time Warner, Piccadilly Radio and Virgin Broadcasting Company, among others. He said:

Since joining the board earlier this year I have quickly come to see the enormous potential across the company’s businesses, the strength and dedication of the people who work here, and the great opportunities that exist for Pearson to become a digital first learning company.

JD Wetherspoon’s sales have fallen by almost a fifth since the reopening of its chain of pubs last month and the company warned it will report a loss for its financial year because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The group, which has reopened 844 of its 873 pubs, said that bar and food sales were down 16.9% year on year in the 44-day period to 16 August.

Wetherspoons said the government’s eat out to help out scheme, which gives diners 50% off to a maximum of £10 per person on Monday to Wednesday, had boosted sales.

You can read the full report here:

Shares in Amigo Holdings, the controversial guarantor loans provider, have tumbled by a quarter this morning after the latest salvo in a brutal battle for control of the business.

Amigo’s founder, James Benamor, remains the largest shareholder through his Richmond Group vehicle. On Friday he wrote a blog post calling for himself to be appointed as chief executive of the lender’s parent company, while keeping on newly appointed chief executive Glen Crawford as head of the lending subsidiary, Amigo Loans Ltd.

Amigo was built by Benamor to target poorer customers who might not otherwise be able to gain credit. It allows friends or relatives of borrowers to stand as guarantor, which the company argues widens access to finance. However, the sector has faced heavy criticism for its high-cost loans and regulators have clamped down, causing the share price to tumble.

Benamor said he wanted to move Amigo towards areas not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, but Amigo on Monday said Benamor’s return would result in Crawford’s immediate resignation.

Mr Crawford has made it clear to the board that he is not prepared to work with Amigo in any circumstances where Mr Benamor returns to Amigo’s governance structure in a position of influence, and that Mr Crawford’s decision to return as CEO was predicated on the clear statement from Mr Benamor that he was selling down Richmond Group Limited’s controlling shareholding in Amigo to a position of zero.

In the event that Mr Benamor elects to requisition a general meeting for shareholders to vote on his proposals, and should he be successful in gaining shareholder approval for his proposals, the board has agreed with Mr Crawford that he may terminate his employment contract immediately. The board is strongly of the view that such an outcome would be materially detrimental to the interests of the company and its shareholders taken as a whole.

The FTSE 100 has jumped by 1.2% at the opening bell, up 69 points at about 6,071 points.

The Euro Stoxx index, which measures shares including the FTSE and other major European companies, gained 1.2%. It was helped by a gain of 1.3% on France’s Cac 40 and 1.4% for Germany’s Dax index.