US regulator the Securities and Exchange Commission has charged the ex-Wells Fargo chief executive John Stumpf for his role in misleading investors about the success of its core business.

He’s agreed to pay $2.5m to settle the charges.

The SEC said Stumpf signed and backed official regulatory statements which he should have known were misleading, due to the Community Bank’s cross-selling strategy which inflated its performance.

It links back to the banks’ account fraud scandal, which saw the bank create millions of fraudulent savings and current accounts on behalf of Wells Fargo clients, often without their consent.

Community banking chief Carrie Tolstdt has also been charged, and those charges are set to be dealt with in court.

The FCA is not getting much applause for its proposed censure of Carillion and its warning to executives- at least not from Prem Sikka, professor of accounting at the University of Sheffield and emeritus professor at the University of Essex:

Note: This post has been amended to clarify that the FCA has only issued warnings to certain former Carillion executives. The potential censure only applies to Carillion, the company.

DATA FLASH: The US producer price index (PPI) for October rose 0.5% year-on-year.

That is higher than economist expectations for a 0.4% rise.

Core PPI, excluding food and energy, came in at 1.1% on an annual basis, slightly lower than forecasts for a 1.2% rise.

Despite a pullback today, the London stock market is heading for its best week since April amid rising hopes that a coronavirus vaccine can trigger a faster economic revival from the pandemic than first anticipated.

The FTSE 100 index of leading UK company shares is on track to end the week more than 300 points higher, a rise of almost 7%, despite a modest sell-off on Friday as City investors bet it would still take time to deploy the vaccine and for Britain’s economy to stage a full recovery.

Financial markets around the world have soared since Pfizer/BioNTech announced earlier this week that its Covid vaccine was 90% effective in protecting people from transmission of the virus in global trials. Russia also said on Wednesday that its own candidate, Sputnik V, had shown in trials it could cut the likelihood of catching the disease by 92%.

However, the continued rapid spread of the virus and the start of tougher lockdown restrictions has limited gains in stock markets as the second wave of Covid inflicts a heavy toll on the global economy.

Shares in the blue-chip London index were down by 0.5% on Friday lunchtime to trade at about 6,300, as optimism earlier this week was tempered by the prospect of a difficult winter before a vaccine becomes widely available.

BREAKING: Spanish bank Santander is set to cut 4,000 jobs in Spain and cut around 1,000 branches.

That’s according to Reuters, citing local news agency EFE.

There doesn’t seem to be any suggestion that job cuts will extend to UK operations but we’ll update you if we learn more.

Prime minister Boris Johnson’s spokesman has confirmed that Brexit talks will be paused over the weekend but will resume in Brussels net week, according to Reuters.

The spokesman added that familiar differences remain in EU trade talks over a level playing field and fisheries.

As my colleague Daniel Boffey explains, Brexit talks have been deadlocked over two main issues: future EU access to UK fishing waters and the “level playing field” provisions to ensure neither side can achieve a competitive advantage through lowering regulatory standards or subsidising failing businesses.

Tesco has apologised after its grocery website was overwhelmed with shoppers trying to book delivery slots for Christmas.

Customers complained they had been forced to join an online queue for hours after it opened bookings for Christmas week for shoppers signed up to Tesco’s Delivery Pass subscription service.

The retailer said it had also paused sign-ups to the Delivery Pass service “to help support our existing and vulnerable customers because of the high demand for online slots.”

Messages on Tesco’s official Twitter account told shoppers the website had suffered from a “technical issue” which it was trying to fix.

“We’re sorry if things take a bit longer than usual,” Tesco said. “We’re experiencing a huge volume of customers who are trying to book a slot at the moment,” it said.

Time to check back in on stocks markets, which are mixed across Europe.

While major continental indices are still managing to trade in positive territory, the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 are down -0.5% and -0.4%, respectively.

US futures are still in positive territory, with the S&P 500, Dow, and Nasdaq futures each up by more than 0.7%.

David Madden, a market analyst at CMC Markets UK, says:

Equity markets started off in the red this morning but they have been driving higher recently and most European indices are in positive territory.

The rebound in sentiment seems a bit strange seeing as the number of new coronavirus cases in the UK, Germany and Italy are worrying. France is committed to maintaining its lockdown in the near term and so is the UK.

The health crisis is becoming more of a serious issue in the US too as cities like New York and Chicago could be in for stricter restrictions. The pandemic might not have the same negative impact on equities that it used to, seeing as there has been great progress made with respect to the drug that Pfizer and BioNTech are developing.

At the same time, dealers need to be mindful that the potential Covid-19 vaccine might not get approval, and even if it does, the roll out process will probably be timely.

Strong figures have been released by the food delivery arm of Uber.

Uber Eats recorded around 32 million food delivery trips in the three months to September 30, the company said.

That compares to 12.5 million delivery trips during the same period in 2019.

The Bank of England has written to insurance executives this morning, warning they may have been “optimistic” when estimating their Covid-related losses.

Our work has highlighted that a number of firms have not been able to accurately identify and track Covid exposed policies, leading to unexpected Covid losses.

Firms should ensure that this uncertainty is reflected in the reserve estimates and that, where possible, appropriate procedures are put in place to identify and track exposed policies.

The central bank’s regulatory arm, the Prudential Regulation Authority, said it would be approaching insurers in the “coming months” to make sure firms are actively addressing any shortfalls.

The 12.6% rise in eurozone GDP is still a record high for quarterly growth, despite its downward revision, according to Eurostat:

These were by far the sharpest increases observed since time series started in 1995, and a rebound compared with the second quarter of 2020, when GDP had decreased by 11.8% in the euro area and by 11.4% in the EU.

Eurozone employment was up 0.9% on on a quarterly basis in Q3, according to Eurostat.

However, on an annual basis, employment was still 2% lower in the three months to September, compared to the same period last year.

Investors seem to be buying on the dip, which is helping European stocks reverse losses less than two hours into trading.

US futures have also been helped by Edison’s projection of Joe Biden’s win in Arizona, helping cement his presidential election win.

Here is how futures are looking on Wall Street:

• S&P 500 futures are up 0.8%
• Dow futures are up 0.7%
• Nasdaq futures are up 0.7%

Brexit jitters and the power struggle at 10 Downing Street are also weighing on global stock markets this morning.

As Susannah Streeter, senior investment and markets analyst at Hargeaves Lansdown, explains:

The wave of optimism which washed over the financial markets has begun to ebb away as anxieties over a Brexit deal take hold once again....The expected departure of two of Boris Johnson’s top advisors has added to the cloud of uncertainty which has been gathering over concerns trade negotiations could be heading for fresh deadlock.

The pound has already steadily gained ground earlier in the week, boosted by the Pfizer announcement but has slipped back to below 1.12 against the euro, reflecting the dawning realisation that there will be no quick fix to the pandemic.

Sterling is ticking up slowly again this morning, but there is a distinct lack of momentum as traders await the latest twist in the Brexit saga.

The clock is ticking on a Brexit deal with a summit of EU leaders on 19 November now seen in Brussels as the final deadline for a draft Brexit deal. Though, unsurprisingly, negotiations are expected to go to the wire.

If you’re looking for some escape from the doom and gloom of the markets, my colleague Sarah Butler has the inside tale on John Lewis’ new Christmas advert (yep, it’s that time of year already).

Over the past decade the retailer’s festive ad has become a big annual TV moment that kicks off the Christmas shopping season.

Its campaigns – from the Hare and the Bear in 2013 to Monty the Penguin in 2014 and last year’s Excitable Edgar the dinosaur – have specialised in heart-warming tales of cute characters to part shoppers from their cash in the department store. And they have been viewed millions of times online.

But 2020 has been a different year. So different, according to the retailer, that they even toyed with abandoning a Christmas campaign altogether.

Instead it has come up with a pandemic theme of kindness and giving to charity, rather than giving presents, but still with appealing animals, children and snowmen.

The two-minute ad, which will be aired online from Friday morning and then debut on TV during ITV’s The Voice on Saturday, is being used to promote a Give a Little Love charity campaign. It aims to raise £5m over Christmas to help 100,000 families through food redistribution charity FareShare and Home-Start and other charities chosen locally by stores.

Oil prices have also tumbled this morning amid fears that rising Covid cases will continue to hold back an economic recovery, including fuel demand.

Traders are still gloomy after the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned yesterday that global oil demand is unlikely to recover from any Covid vaccine until further into 2021.

Brent crude is down 1.3% at around $42.96 while WTI is down 1.6% at $40.45 per barrel.

However, both benchmarks are still on course for their second weekly gain of around 9%.

We’ve now got a print for Germany’s Dax which is down 0.1% at the open.

As expected, European stocks have fallen into the red at the start of trading:

• FTSE 100 is down 0.7%
• France’s Cac 40 is down 0.2%
• Spain’s Ibex is down 0.5%