UK chancellor Rishi Sunak has been answering questions via a live stream on LinkedIn, and here are some highlights:

• He’s said he will need to support the UK economy for a while to come. But while the UK is right to have borrowed as much as it has so far, he warned that the current level of support cannot continue.

• Sunak said he was looking to provide more support to people unemployed long-term:

We’re actively looking at what a version of that might be, that we could put in place...that will provide that intensive support to find new opportunities for those who have been unemployed for a long time, so stay tuned.”

• Sunak also said the UK needs to have its eyes wide open on foreign investment, saying there are hostile actors

You can rewatch the session in full, here.

Drilling down into some of the US labour stats, leisure, hospitality and retail are still suffering heavily due to the Covid-19 crisis.

According to the US Bureau of Labour Statistics, employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 318,000 in September, with almost 200,000 or two-thirds of the gain occurring in food services and drinking establishments.

But while there has been an addition of 3.8m jobs to the food and drink sector over the past five months, those sites are still down by 2.3m since February.

The retail industry added 142,000 jobs over the month, and the gains were widespread. Clothing and clothing accessories stores, which saw a 40,000 rise, accounted for about a quarter of the of the over-the-month change in retail trade.

Some of the other retail sub-sectors that benefited included general merchandise stores (+20,000), motor vehicle and parts dealers (+16,000), and health and personal care stores (+16,000).

However, employment in the retail trade sectors is still 483,000 lower than in February.

The combination of the Trump Covid news and the lower-than-expected US non-farm numbers have pushed US futures even lower:

Some European indices have also dipped again, with the FTSE 100 now down 1%, the FTSE 250 down 0.89%, the German DAX down nearly 1.1% and the French CAC down 0.86%.

About half of the jobs lost in the early months after the coronavirus hit the US have now been recovered.

But the recovery in the US jobs market has been uneven, disproportionately benefitting white men while young people, women, Latino and Black Americans have continued to struggle to make up lost ground, my colleagues Dominic Rushe and Michael Sainato write.

Dedrea Perea of Bernalillo, New Mexico lost her job in telecommunications in August. Her unemployment benefits have been placed on hold because she’s still considered employed in order to maintain her health insurance and can’t get a hold of anyone through the state unemployment agency to address her dilemma.

For now, state regulations have placed moratoriums on evictions and utility shut offs, but she is at risk of having her car repossessed and is struggling to cover her back payments on rent and utilities.

“I’ve been donating plasma in order to make small payments to my utilities and my landlord so that I’m not too far behind until I can find a job,” said Perea.

William Rodgers, former chief economist at the US Department of Labor, and one of the US’s most prominent black economists, said the jobs recovery seemed to have hit “a plateau” and continuing restrictions on how businesses operate, fresh outbreaks, and the coming flu season could all slow further recovery.

Rodgers, professor of public policy and chief economist at the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University, said the current situation would likely hit minorities – and particularly young minorities – hardest.

“This is a two-reality economy,” said Rodgers. “Going into this recession, inequality was, by many measures, at all time highs. One group has faired OK economically and has worked from home while another has suffered economically, and in terms of health, to a far higher degree.”

Average US earnings, meanwhile rose 0.1% on a month-on-month basis in September, less than the Reuters forecast for a 0.2% rise.

That compares to a 0.3% rise in August (having been revised down from 0.4%).

On an annual basis, average earnings rose 4.7%, slightly higher than 4.6% in August but lower than forecasts for a 4.8% increase.

More from the US jobs report: The US unemployment rate fell from 8.4% in August to 7.9% in September.

That is lower than consensus estimates for a reading of 8.2%.

US futures have pared some losses on news that US vice president Mike Pence has tested negative for Covid-19. Dow futures are now down around 337 points or 1.22%.

But let’s see what the jobs report holds.

It’s time for the September US jobs report, even if Trump’s Covid-19 test threatens to overshadowing the upcoming data.

It will be the last set of jobs numbers to be released before the presidential election, which increases the stakes for president Trump.

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

President Trump will be hoping for a decent number in order to make the point that the US economy is continuing to recover from its Covid shock, in line with last months August report which continued the trend of a slow a recovery in the US jobs market, with the unemployment rate falling to 8.4%, and its lowest level since the post lockdown spike to 14.7% in April.

While this is welcome, we can’t ignore the fact that the US labour market looks a radically different beast to the one we saw earlier in the year. We can’t even be sure that the unemployment rate is an accurate reflection of what is going on around the US as a whole.

At his most recent press conference Fed chairman Jerome Powell touched upon this very topic when he said that the US central bank wasn’t even sure how high the real unemployment figure actually was. He said that given the volatility being seen in the data it could well be 3% higher than the headline rate suggests, when underemployment and people who have dropped out of the workforce are taken into account.

Expectations are for 875k new jobs to be added in September, down from 1.37m, and the unemployment rate is expected to fall further to 8.2%, with recent claims data appearing to suggest that the number of people returning to the workforce is slowing down.

Boris Johnson’s spokesperson and German chancellor Angela Merkel have commented on Brexit talks, but surprise, surprise: there’s been no breakthrough

According to Reuters, Johnson’s spokesman said they’ve had constructive and wide ranging talks with the EU this week, adding that the position has always been that they need to see a resolution by mid-October.

Meanwhile, Merkel says she can’t announce a breakthrough on Brexit and said a lot will depend on what Britain wants. She says they must respect Britain’s wishes and find a suitable answer. However, as long as negotiations are ongoing, she says she is optimistic.

Oil prices are now at three and a half month low.

Brent crude is down around 4% at $39.27 per barrel. That’s about 20 cents lower than this morning.

Meanwhile, US futures are still ticking lower as we count down to the open:

• S&P 500 futures are down 1.5% or 53 points
• Dow futures are down 1.4% or 400 points
• Nasdaq futures are down 2.2% or 257 points

European equities have pared some losses, but all major indices are still solidly in the red:

• FTSE 100 down 0.77%
• France’s CAC 40 down 0.86%
• Germany’s DAX down 0.97%
• Italy’s FTSE MIB down 0.89%

While some investors are trying to figure out what Trump’s Covid-19 case means for the upcoming election, others are also trying to figure out if this will lead to a shift in health care policy by the current president.

Paul Donovan, chief economist at UBS Global Wealth Management, explains:

News that US President Trump has tested positive for COVID-19 must be worrying at a personal level, as it would be for anyone. Markets (being impersonal) will focus on whether this affects the election outcome or public health policy.

The future presidential debates may not happen; these were not seen as especially significant.

Those opposed to mask-wearing may revise their views, and the president’s experience may impact US public health policy.

Chancellor Rishi Sunak has weighed into the Asda deal, according to Reuters, saying it’s great to see Asda returning to majority UK ownership for the first time in two decades today.

My colleague Zoe Wood has more on the takeover of Asda by the billionaire Issa brothers.

European stock markets slid on Friday after Donald Trump announced that he had tested positive for the coronavirus just over a month before the US presidential election.

Every major stock market index in Europe fell after the news broke, following falls in Asia, as investors moved money away from perceived riskier assets. The FTSE 100 in London dropped by 0.6% to about 5,486 points in morning trading, while the Europe-wide Stoxx 600 index lost 0.3%.

Futures prices for US stock markets fell, with S&P 500 and Dow Jones industrial average futures losing 1.2% while US stock markets were closed.

Analysts said the US president’s diagnosis would heighten uncertainty in financial markets in the run-up to the election, scheduled to take place on 3 November.

Kit Juckes, the head of foreign exchange strategy at Société Générale, an investment bank, said there were “few immediate answers” to the uncertainties posed by the news, although he noted that the Democratic nominee, Jo Biden, had a significant lead in most national polls.

However, Juckes added: “The path of the election campaign will inevitably change and uncertainty has obviously increased.”

The flight to safe haven assets has driven down bond yields, which move inversely to prices and fall when demand for bonds rises.

Case in point, the yield on the benchmark US 10-year Treasury bond fell as low as 0.653% this morning before experiencing a slight recovery to 0.661%

According to the takeover announcement, Asda will continue to be headed up by chief executive Roger Burnley.

The billionaire Issa brothers and TDR have also committed to investing more than £1bn in Asda over the the next three years, which they say will “further strengthen the business and its supply chain.”

So who are the Issa brothers and what relationship do they have with TDR? As my colleague Sarah Butler explains:

The Blackburn-born brothers, who bought their first petrol station in Bury, Greater Manchester, in 2001, each own a quarter of EG Group, which is thought to be worth as much as £10bn after a series of acquisitions including forecourt groups in the US, Little Chef roadside cafes and a major Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise in the UK.

TDR owns the other half of the group, which was formed in 2016 by the merger of the Issas’ Euro Garages with TDR’s European Forecourt Retail Group and now employs 50,000 people across almost 6,000 sites in the UK, US, Europe and Australia. Sales at the group soared by two-thirds to €20bn (£18.1bn) in 2019, according to the latest accounts filed at Companies House, but the company made a pre-tax loss of £82m after servicing £8.4bn of debts.

The pair, whose parents came to the UK from Gujarat, India, in the 1960s, attended their local comprehensive school in Blackburn while their father worked in a textile factory. The brothers donate 2.5% of their wealth every year to charity and their Issa Foundation supports local hospitals and deprived schoolchildren.

For more background on the deal, check out Sarah’s write up from earlier this week:

Bert Colijn, a senior eurozone economist at ING, says Germany’s cut to VAT was patly to blame for the further drop in eurozone inflation, as were falling energy prices.

However, the decline in services inflation - likely linked to the impact of social distancing – is the biggest cause for concern, he says:

Perhaps the most worrying decline in the inflation rate comes from services inflation, which usually shows very little volatility and is a large component of the core inflation index.

Services inflation was 1.6% in February and has dropped to just 0.5% in September. We find that this is predominantly due to large drops in prices for services related to social distancing, indicating that the coronavirus has had a significant deflationary impact.

For the European Central Bank, most of these factors ordinarily should not cause a change of direction. Still, core inflation this low is hard to ignore, especially since President Lagarde has recently put a lot of emphasis on the importance of the core measure.

Also, the second round effects of low inflation for quite some time could become a factor for the medium-term expectations, which is enough for the doves to argue for more stimulus in December.

Don’t panic. That’s the message from AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould this morning.

Mould says investors are trying to understand what this means for the presidential election. And while markets may be on the back foot, we are still far from the large scale losses experienced at the start of the pandemic in February and March.

Mould says:

Donald Trump catching coronavirus has put the markets in a mild state of disarray.

First, the President of the United States becoming ill creates a sense of instability for markets in general.

Second, it raises the question of how the Presidential election will play out – has Joe Biden also been affected, will Trump be well enough to continue the debating while self-isolating, and will the elections be postponed?

One could view the market reaction as investors increasing the probability that Biden will win the election. His intention to raise taxes will not be good for corporate profits and therefore a negative for the stock market.

However, Mould added:

In the grand scheme of things, the scale of these declines isn’t as dramatic compared to how the markets behaved in February and March as the pandemic unfolded. It certainly isn’t time to panic.

US futures have taken a notable hit on the Trump Covid news, as investors offload riskier stocks in favour of gold and government bonds.

S&P 500 futures are down 36 points or 1% and Nasdaq futures have tumbled 188 points or 1.6%.

Meanwhile, Dow futures are down near 300 points or more than 1%:

Turning momentarily to the UK’s Covid response, the National Crime Agency says the government-backed Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) for small businesses seeking is being exploited – including by criminals.

According to Reuters, the NCA has provided banks with “red flag indicators” to help them detect fraudulent applications.

The bounce back loan scheme offers 100% government-backed loans to small businesses worth up to 25% of their turnover, up to £50,000. It is the UK’s only emergency business loan programme to come with a standard interest rate of 2.5%, after an initial 12-month interest and payment-free period.

The warning from the NCA comes a day after the MPs on the BEIS committee wrote to business secretary Alok Sharma over what action was taken after the department was warned about fraud risks linked to the government’s Covid loan scheme by the British Business Bank.

The bets are off – at least on the Betfair website.

Bookmaker Betfair has suspended betting on US presidential election odds after Trump’s positive Covid-19 diagnosis.

Amazon has revealed that almost 20,000 of its workers in the US have contracted Covid-19 after months of demands for public disclosure from activists, my colleague Jasper Jolly writes.

The US tech company has been one of the biggest corporate winners during the pandemic, with people across the world switching to online shopping during lockdowns. However, Amazon has faced criticism from some labour campaigners who alleged that the company put employees in danger by keeping warehouses open.

In a blogpost, Amazon said that its analysis suggested that the rate of infection among 1.4m workers at Amazon and its Whole Foods subsidiary was 42% lower than the rate expected based on the broader US population.

A state-by-state breakdown of the cases showed that the highest rate of infection of Amazon employees was in Minnesota, where 3.17% of Amazon workers were presumed to have caught Covid-19, double the rate of infection in the broader population. However, the data did not give absolute numbers of infected workers in each state or whether workers in warehouses were more vulnerable.

There’s a short update from AstraZeneca, which has been working on an experimental Covid-19 vaccine with the University of Oxford.

The British drugmaker said that clinical trials for the vaccine have resumed in Japan, but that it is still in talks with regulators over data needed to restart trials in the US, which is one of the countries where the trials had been put on pause.

Last month, regulators in the UK, Brazil, South Africa, India said that trials were safe to continue.

The company said:

AstraZeneca continues to work with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to facilitate review of the information needed to make a decision regarding resumption of the US trial. The safety of trial participants is of paramount importance and we are committed to upholding the highest standards of conduct in clinical trials.

AstraZeneca shares are down around 0.3% this morning.

Oil took one of the biggest hits after the Trump Covid announcement this morning, with prices falling as much as 3.2% to $39.48 per barrel.

Brent crude prices were already in negative territory amid fears that a $2.2tn Covid relief plan approved by the US House of Representatives appeared to be doomed by objections by the Republican-controlled US Senate. Without more support for the US economy, traders fear consumer demand will decline further.

Trump’s Covid diagnosis meant traders were keen to avoid any futher risk.

Brent has since pared some of its losses, but prices are still down 2.7%. It puts the global benchmark on course for a 5% drop this week, marking its second straight week of declines.

Stephen Innes, chief global markets strategist at AXI, explains the market swing over Trump’s Covid diagnosis succinctly: “Dump all risk, find the best haven, and reevaluate later is the primary modus operandi.”

Traders are trying to figure out what this means for the US presidential election campaign, and whether they should be hedging for spending plans put forward by Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden. Innes explains:

The risk-off reaction to Trump’s positive Covid-19 test feels like the last of the Biden pricing is getting done. The quarantine will mean he misses three swing state rallies - with critical Florida among them. It also means the next debate will need to be shifted.

Currently, oil is the worst performer, down just over 2%, followed by the mini down 1.8%. Interestingly, Treasury yields haven’t risen..

...Biden spending plans might have been expected to drive demand into US Treasuries, but gold is a better hedge as the market tuns off the dollar; the yen’s gain is as expected, but the bid for CNH [Chinese yuan] stands out also.

There will also be concerns about who else in Trump’s inner circle may have been exposed to the virus. Innes says:

There are plenty of pictures from Trump and others, including Vice President Pence, talking without masks. With senior White House staff operating in a very tight bubble, the next stages will be the test results for everyone on the Ohio trip.

I suspect there are emergency contingency meetings underway now with could lather the market with stimulus.