Shares in JPMorgan Chase fell almost 7% in after hours trading on Wall Street on Thursday after it revealed a surprise $2bn derivatives trading loss by a London trader.

INVESTMENT TRUSTS

Former Monetary Policy Committee member Andrew Sentance does not expect the Bank of England to unveil more QE tomorrow, and said this is the right course of action to avoid triggering higher inflation.

The Queen has unveiled 19 new pieces of legislation in her annual speech to open Parliament, focusing on boosting the UK economy with a raft of business-friendly measures.

EUROZONE CRISIS

M&G became the UK's largest asset manager by AUM in the first quarter of the year, knocking rival Invesco Perpetual off the top spot, according to the latest Pridham report, published by Fundscape.

HSBC has announced a fall in profits in the first three months of the year after the bank revalued its debt pile.

Jupiter has launched a Dynamic Bond fund for strategic bond manager Ariel Bezalel.

US stocks ended the day firmly lower on Thursday, after the ISM services sector purchasing managers´ index for the month of April disappointed.

Nationalised lender Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) is to repay the final tranche of the £163bn in emergency loans it took from the UK government, and will resume paying dividends on its preference shares.