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4pm: Parsley Box rebounds

Shares in Scottish meals delivery firm Parsley Box, backed by Chris van der Kuyl and Kevin Dorren, staged a partial rebound today, closing up 1.6p (100%) to trade at 3.05p, valuing the business at £2.3m. But they are still down 83% on the week and 97% over the year, effectively wiping out investors’ holdings.

The plunge in value from £84m at the time of its IPO in March last year follows an announcement on Tuesday that it may leave the stock market. Full story here

Shares in NatWest, trading as Royal Bank of Scotland north of the border, plunged 9.2% (22.8p) to 225.65p as the bank warned of changes in customer behaviour. Full story here

The FTSE 100 recovered from a 70-point decline to trade flat at 7,071.05, down just 2.64 points.

BA owner swings to profit

British Airways owner IAG said it had swung to a third-quarter profit as airline travel continued to recover from the Covid pandemic.

The company posted an operating profit of €1.2bn compared with a loss of €452m a year ago. It said it now expected an annual profit of €1.1bn.

Twitter deal closes

Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn (£38.1bn) takeover of Twitter and already cleared out a number of top executives, including the boss, Parag Agrawal.

Mr Musk, the world’s richest man and owner of Tesla cars, tweeted “the bird is freed,” in a reference to the deal closing and Twitter going private.

It brings and end to a bitter battle that saw the social media company go to court to ensure the billionaire stuck to the terms of a takeover deal from which he had tried to withdraw.

Global markets

Sterling was quoted at $1.1560 early Friday, down from $1.1573 at the London equities close on Thursday.

European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde sounded tough on inflation on Thursday, but a slight ‘dovish tweak’ to the central bank’s monetary policy statement has sent the euro below dollar parity.

The Bank of Japan stuck to its ultra-loose monetary policies on Friday, even as the yen comes under pressure from aggressive tightening by the US Federal Reserve and other central banks.

In Tokyo the Nikkei 225 index was down 0.7% in late trade.

Elsewhere in Asia, the Shanghai Composite was down 1.7% and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong gave back 3.6%.

The US economy grew at a faster pace than expected in the third quarter, according to the latest estimate from the US National Bureau of Economic Research on Thursday, as weekly jobless claims ticked up, but came in lower than anticipated.

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed up 0.6%, while the S&P 500 closed down 0.6% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended 1.6% lower.