AstraZeneca becomes first British company to reach £200bn in revenue

AstraZeneca becomes first British company to reach £200bn in revenue

Thank you for joining us. Britain remains gripped by an unemployment crisis, as the number of people out of work and not looking for a job reaches a 13-year high.

According to the Office for National Statistics, more than 9.5 million people were considered economically inactive in the three months to June, the highest number since 2011.

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What happened at night

Asian shares were mixed as Tokyo's main stock index recovered from last week's decline.

Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 2.8 percent to 36,014.26, after the index rose more than 1,000 points at one point.

Australia's S&P/ASX 200 rose 0.1 percent to 7,821.60. South Korea's Kospi lost 0.3 percent to 2,610.17.

Hong Kong's Hang Seng was little changed, falling less than 0.1 percentage point to 17,107.52, while the Shanghai Composite rose less than 0.1 percentage point to 2,859.62.

In Tokyo, there was demand for computer chip stocks, with Tokyo Electron rising 5.4 percent, in line with strong performance by technology-related companies on Wall Street.

Investors also seemed to be cheered by how the recently volatile yen value appeared to be calming. While a cheap yen is a boon for Japan’s big exporters — it boosts the value of overseas earnings when converted into yen — a cheap currency gradually erodes a country’s purchasing power.

The US dollar rose to 147.30 Japanese yen from 147.17 yen. The euro cost $1.0936, little changed from $1.0935.

On Wall Street, the S&P 500 closed flat and the Nasdaq Composite index rose 0.2%, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 leading U.S. companies fell 0.4%. MSCI's index of global stocks also closed flat.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries, which set the global benchmark for borrowing costs, fell to 3.9035% after rising 0.15 percentage points last week, the biggest increase since April.