FTSE 100

Stamp dealership firm Stanley Gibbons plans to launch a fund investing in rare stamps later this year, allowing UK investors access to the rapid growth of this market.

With Greece heading towards default, Spain in the doldrums, and the US starting to slow, it is hard to pluck up the courage to buy shares now, but Fidelity's equities guru Dominic Rossi has highlighted five reasons why things are not all that bad.

The FTSE 100 has added 1.4% in early trading as investors consign yesterday's ECB disappointment to the past and await today's US jobs data.

London's leading index was 60 points higher in afternoon trading despite a slump in UK manufacturing data, as Next and Standard Chartered lifted the market.

The FTSE 100 has added 1.2% to move back towards 5,700 as global markets anticipate concrete policy action to protect the euro later this week.

PENSION FUNDS

The US economy has beaten forecasts from analysts after it expanded by 1.5% in Q2.

Apple shares led the fallers on the Nasdaq shortly after open following a disappointing second quarter trading update from the tech giant.

Markets dipped into the red this afternoon after a weaker start in the US, as a round of poor corporate updates weighed on investor sentiment, compounding eurozone fears.

Global equity markets are tumbling this morning as the eurozone crisis once again takes centre stage, with Spain's debt costs leaping to a new record high and speculation returning Greece will exit the single currency.