Just in: the number of vacancies across the US economy has dropped.

According to the JOLTs survey, there were 7.051 million job openings in America in August. That’s down from 7.17m in July, and weaker than the 7.19m expected.

July’s figures has been revised down from 7.21 million, which also indicates the US labour market isn’t as strong as thought.

Instant reaction: This isn’t too good.

Wall Street has opened higher, as investors cling onto reports that China is open to a ‘partial trade deal’.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 186 points, or around 0.7% at the open, recovering some of Tuesday’s 314-point losses.

Investors are still edgy, though, given the recent deterioration in relations between the US and China.

Vincent Mivelaz of Swissquote predicts tense negotiations when the two sides sit down in Washington tomorrow.

On the trade front, it seems that ministerial negotiations are expected to be tense following the latest announcement by the State Department to restrict visas to certain Chinese officials while prohibiting Chinese AI companies from buying products from US companies without prior approval from the US government.

European markets are also up in afternoon trading:

• FTSE 100: up 30 points or 0.4% at 7173
• German DAX: up 133 points or 1.1% at 12,103
• French CAC: up 38 points or 0.7% at 5,495

Four years ago, the thought of paying to lend money to Greece was laughable.

But today, Athens has successfully sold €487.5m of three-month bonds at an average yield of just below zero (-0.02%).

That means investors paid more than the face value of the bonds, and are guaranteed to make a loss, unless they can sell the debt on at an even higher price before it matures in January 2020.

Quite a turnaround from 2015, when the risk that Greece would tumble out of the eurozone drove bond yields to dangerously high levels, and triggered the introduction of capital controls.

Athens’ new government may see it as a vote of confidence from investors, who also flocked to an offering of 10-year debt on Tuesday.

But it may also show anxiety over the global economy, with traders keen to park their money anywhere safe.

Yanis Varoufakis, Greece’s former finance minister, isn’t optimistic:

Newsflash: Global stock markets are suddenly strengthening, on a report that China is open to a “partial trade deal”.

A Chinese official has told Bloomberg that Beijing isn’t confidence of a comprehensive agreement this week (who is?!). However, they are apparently open to the idea of a partial deal -- as long as Donald Trump didn’t impose any more tariffs on goods.

In return, China could offer some ‘non-core’ concessions, such as buying more US agricultural products.

But it wouldn’t move on key sticking points such as subsidies for Chinese firms, or the ‘forced technology transfers’ imposed on American firms hoping to break into China.

Such a limited ‘deal’ wouldn’t resolve the tensions between the two countries, but it could prevent things getting worse.

The pan-European Stoxx 600 index has just gained almost 1%, with Germany’s DAX gaining 1.3%.

In London, the FTSE 100 pushed up to 7183, up 40 points or 0.55% today.

The Bank of England has warned of a material risk of economic disruption from no-deal Brexit.

In its latest financial policy summary, the BoE also sounds the alarm that entrenched political uncertainty is hitting the British economy and putting-off overseas investors.

My colleague Richard Partington is at the Bank, and reports:

Threadneedle Street said that preparations for a no-deal scenario later this month had improved over the past year, and that major British banks were ready to withstand the fallout from the disruption.

However, it said business investment in Britain was faltering, financial markets and business activity would be disrupted, and that the value of British assets had come under selling pressure. Global investors are also growing increasingly reluctant to buy into commercial property and lend to high-risk UK companies, it warned, in a sign of the uncertainty facing the economy.

Publishing its final financial stability report before the deadline at the end of the month, it said: “Although actions by businesses and authorities have resulted in some improvement in the preparedness of the UK economy for a no-deal Brexit, material risks of economic disruption remain.”

“Financial stability is not the same as market stability. Significant further asset price volatility is to be expected in a disorderly Brexit.”

The pound has come under sharp selling pressure in recent days as hopes of a deal between Britain and the EU fade.

The Bank’s financial policy committee (FPC) also warned Facebook that its Libra cryptocurrency would need to meet tough regulations before it could launch the payments system in Britain.

In a warning shot to the social media company, it said that digital wallets used for holding the digital currency would need to meet the same safety standards as the rules for regular bank accounts.

“If payment tokens were used widely to facilitate routine payments, they should have the same level of operational resilience and safeguarding as the use of debit cards to make payments from current accounts,” the Bank said.

Just in: The Bank of England has warned that the trade war between the United States and China is harming the world economy.

The minutes of its latest Financial Policy Committee meeting, just released, cite the dispute as the biggest short-term threat to financial stability. But it also believes banks can handle it.

The Bank says:

• Following the latest announcements, average bilateral tariffs between the United States and China are around 20 percentage points higher than at the start of 2018. These tariffs – and the uncertainty associated with intensifying trade tensions – have contributed to slowing global growth and are likely to weigh on global growth in the coming quarters.
  
  
• The trade war has also increased downside risks to the global outlook. Global growth could slow more sharply if the trade war were to lead to a tightening of financial conditions or to further reductions in business confidence and investment. A broadening of the trade war beyond tariff measures to restrictions on technology and capital, and to other jurisdictions, would magnify global risks and fragment the global economy.
  
  
• Even if a protectionist-driven global slowdown were to spill over to the UK at the same time as a worst-case disorderly Brexit, the FPC judges that the core UK banking system would be strong enough to absorb, rather than amplify, the resulting economic shocks.

Newsflash: Thomas Cook’s entire UK retail estate has been sold, two weeks after the company collapsed.

The UK’s Official Receiver has just announced that Hays Travel - Britain’s largest independent travel agent - is buying all Thomas Cook’s 555 stores around the UK.

This will “providing re-employment opportunities for a significant number of former employees” of Thomas Cook, the Receiver says.

It’s not clear exactly how many jobs will be saved, but Hays have already recruited 421 former Thomas Cook staff, and have made offers to other employees who lost their jobs.

KPMG partner Jim Tucker, who has been running Thomas Cook’s retail arm since the firm folded, says it is an “extremely positive outcome”.

It provides re-employment opportunities for a significant number of former Thomas Cook employees, and secures the future of retail sites up and down the UK high street.

Heads-up: Reuters is reporting that China is considering blocking US visitors with “anti-China links” from getting visas.

That would be a retaliation to America’s new visa restrictions on Chinese officials, over the Xinjiang crackdown. It also underlines how relations between Beijing and Washington are heading south.

Reuters says:

China is planning tighter visa restrictions for U.S. nationals with ties to anti-China groups, people with knowledge of the proposed curbs said, following similar U.S. restrictions on Chinese nationals, as relations between the countries sour.

China’s Ministry of Public Security has for months been working on rules to limit the ability of anyone employed, or sponsored, by U.S. intelligence services and human rights groups to travel to China.

The proposed changes follow the introduction by the United States of tighter rules for visas for Chinese scholars in May.

New U.S. visa restrictions announced on Tuesday, on Chinese government and Communist Party officials the United States believes responsible for the detention or abuse of Muslim minorities, had bolstered the case for the new Chinese restrictions, one of the sources said.

“This is not something we want to do but we don’t seem to have any choice,” the source said.

Here’s the full story:

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

Hopes of a breakthrough in the US-China trade war are fading, even before the two side sit down for their latest attempt to resolve a dispute that is hurting the world economy badly.

Relations between the two countries appear to be deteriorating, with America imposing fresh curbs on Chinese companies -- and Beijing threatening to hit back.

China’s vice-premier, Liu He, is leading a delegation of major economic officials for a new round of high-stakes trade talks with US counterparts in Washington on Thursday and Friday.

But those talks are being overshadowed by America’s decision to blacklist Chinese technology companies from buying US-made goods, over alleged human rights abuses against Muslim groups.

The US has also imposed visa restrictions on Chinese government and Communist party officials over their actions in the Xinjiang region, where more than a million Uighur people have been detained in camps.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that China must end its “draconian surveillance and repression”, saying:

“The United States calls on the People’s Republic of China to immediately end its campaign of repression in Xinjiang, release all those arbitrarily detained, and cease efforts to coerce members of Chinese Muslim minority groups residing abroad to return to China to face an uncertain fate.

China’s commerce ministry has swiftly hit back, telling Washington to drop its sanctions and stop making “irresponsible remarks”.

It also threatened to take “necessary measures” to protect Chinese interests; a warning that US companies could face reciprocal sanctions?

Even America’s basketball players and cartoonist have been dragged into the spat. Chinese broadcasters are refusing to show Houston Rockets games after a team executive tweeted support for Hong Kong protesters, while South Park is being censored following an episode making fun of, er, Chinese censorship.

The atmosphere is hardly conducive for a breakthrough that could see tariffs lifted. Chinese media have even suggested that Liu He’s delegation could return from Washington a day early! Not encouraging.

So, understandably, Wall Street fell yesterday, with the Dow and the S&P 500 both losing over 1%.

Jim Reid of Deutsche Bank adds:

Trade-sensitive stocks were hit hardest, with the NASDAQ down -1.67% while the Philadelphia semiconductor index fell -3.12% (its worst day since August and down to a one-month low.

Also coming up

We may get fresh insights into the chances of another US interest rate cut today. America’s top central banker, Jerome Powell, is speaking in Kansas City at an “Ask the Fed” event.

Yesterday Powell revealed that the Fed will restart buying US government bonds, in an attempt to prevent liquidity drying up in the markets. He insisted this wasn’t a new QE-style stimulus scheme,

As Rob Carnell of ING writes:

What is interesting is just how vociferously Powell mentioned that this wasn’t QE, saying

“I want to emphasis that growth of our balance sheet for reserve purposes should in no way be confused with the large-scale asset purchase programs that we deployed after the financial crisis. In no sense is this QE”, Powell added.

It is though, isn’t it?...

The Federal Reserve will also release the minutes of last month’s meeting, when it cut interest rates for the second time this year.

Plus, the latest JOLTS report on job vacancies may also show whether American companies are cutting back on hiring.

The agenda

• 3pm BST: US JOLTS report on job vacancies
• 3.30pm BST: Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell takes part in a “Fed Listens” event in Kansas City
• 7pm BST: Minutes of the September Federal Reserve’s FOMC meeting released