Shares in Deutsche Bank tumbled another 4.7pc on Tuesday. The bank’s shares fell to €13.26 and are now down 46pc since the start of the year and 58pc in the last six months. Last month the bank reported a €6.8bn (£5.3bn) loss for 2015.  Deutsche has led the wider banking market down as fears spread over the profitability and financial stability of Germany’s biggest bank. Yesterday Swiss institution Credit Suisse’s shares were down by almost as much, plunging 7.75pc. Spooked investors also sold off shares in other banks, leaving Barclays down 5.2pc, BNP Paribas down 4.8pc and Italy’s Intesa Sanpaolo down 4.9pc.  The turmoil in stock markets since the start of the year has been driven in part by worries over the strength of China’s economy as well as the crash in commodities prices, but investors are particularly concerned by the banking sector’s ability to cope with another downturn.  Investors have also been fleeing Deutsche’s bonds. Analysts have warned that if the bank has any large unexpected costs it may, from next year, be unable to pay the interest on its contingent convertible bonds (or “cocos”). The relatively risky class of securities - also known as AT1s - is designed to ensure that institutional investors pay the bill to help bail out any troubled bank, rather than the taxpayer...Dump Bank shares and any government paper. If you are old enough to cash out your pension... do it. Pension funds here in the UK have about a 650 billion hole in them and growing because of ZIRP and NIRP. Most of them will have sovereign bonds that have yet to blow up.

The ECB is to discuss whether to expand its stimulus measures at its next meeting March 10. Draghi said there were "a variety of instruments" the ECB could employ if it decided more is needed. It could increase its 60 billion euros in monthly bond purchases with newly printed money, a step aimed at driving down already low interest rates and raising inflation that remains too low at 0.4 percent.

He expressed some frustration with governments that have held back spending at a time of economic weakness. He urged governments that are in better shape financially to spend more on public investment that would increase grow and to avoid excessive taxation.

Monetary policy from the central bank "is the only truly stimulative policy over the past four years," he said. ECB officials have warned governments not to rely just on central bank stimulus to boost the modest eurozone recovery.

Frankfurt, Germany • European Central Bank head Mario Draghi says some eurozone banks "face challenges" but that the system is more resilient due to oversight that was strengthened after the global financial crisis.  Draghi said Monday that thanks to new supervision at the European Union level, banks were in a position to bring down the amount of bad loans burdening their finances "in an orderly manner over the next few years."  His comments in the European Parliament follow a week of violent swings in the stock prices of major European banks including Deutsche Bank and Societe Generale. Draghi said some banks faced challenges from litigation and restructuring costs as well as working off soured investments.  The recent sharp drops in stock prices reflected fears banks might be exposed to risks in commodity producing markets, companies and countries. Commodity prices have dropped amid fears about the health of the global economy. Draghi said the situation was "amplified" by perceptions that banks may have difficulty adjusting to an economy with lower growth and lower interest rates. Low interest rates, in part the result of central bank policies, have squeezed bank earnings by narrowing the difference between the rate at which they borrow and the rate at which they lend.

Gideon plan A has failed us all. If we don't start investing soon we truly will be under that water. Investing in social housing will create jobs, investing in hospitals will create jobs, investing in transport will create jobs. Investing in some Tory friends crooked business or awarding contracts will not create jobs, just angry bitterness that the taxpayer is being ripped off by the Tories yet again. Any investing from now on in, needs to be for the tax paying people, who after all is paying for it. There really needs to be a public run accountability body to approve spending by any government and to check that the politicians are not linked in some way or another to a certain company or holding shares or family and friends have an interest. We really need to clean up Parliament corruption....I would turn around and say though...What on Earth do you mean by less austerity? There is no austerity, merely less, marginally less credit expansion. Now, I'm firmly in the camp of a annual social wage. So, don't be calling me some kind of crazy neoliberal, race to the bottom type, but let's not lose track of reality. Classical economics has collapsed, period. Droning on about cuts, cuts, cuts, misses the bloody great gorilla in the room, namely that without credit expansion the global economy would have never recovered, let alone prospered after the first oil shock of 1973. The rest of history, real history, since has been about growing credit roughly online with productive output, minus 10% to keep the Poles in-line.

The European Commission has cut its forecast for economic growth in the eurozone this year. It has cut its prediction for the 19-country bloc in 2016 to 1.7% from the 1.8% it had forecast in November.  That figure would still mark a moderate increase from the figure of 1.6% in 2015. The Commission said government spending had been unexpectedly high because of the number of migrants arriving in Europe, which had boosted GDP.  But it warned that the crisis posed "major political challenges" that could undercut growth if not properly handled.  And vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis said: "Europe's moderate growth is facing increasing headwinds, from slower growth in emerging markets such as China, to weak global trade and geopolitical tensions in Europe's neighborhood."  "It is important to continue structural reforms that can help our economies grow, withstand shocks in the future and improve job opportunities for our population." The Commission cut its inflation forecast for this year from 1.0% to 0.5%, even further below the European Central Bank's target of about 2%. Consumer prices fell by 0.3% in 2015, largely as a result of the fall in energy prices.

The US dollar has suffered one of the sharpest drops in 20 years as the Federal Reserve signals a retreat from monetary tightening, igniting a powerful rally for commodities and easing a ferocious squeeze on dollar debtors in China and emerging markets. The closely-watched dollar index (DXY) has fallen 3pc this week to 96.44 and given up all its gains since late October. This has instant effects on the world’s inter-connected financial system, today more geared to the US exchange rate and Fed policy than at any time in modern history. David Bloom, from HSBC, said the blistering dollar rally of the past three years is largely over and may go into reverse as weak economic figures in the US force the Fed to pare back four rate rises loosely planned for this year. A more dovish Fed and a weaker dollar is a bitter-sweet turn for the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank as they try to push down their currencies to stave off deflation. Their task has become even harder. The euro has rocketed by more than 3pc this week to $1.12 against the dollar. In trade-weighted terms the euro is 5pc higher than it was in March, when the ECB began quantitative easing, showing just how difficult it has become for authorities to drive down their exchange rates. Everybody is playing the same game. Global recession is now a certainty.  The only question is how soon? For the Europe,  it spells Armageddon.  Once the housing bubble bursts and those 2 million zero hours minimum wage service sector jobs disappear very rapidly, a Sterling crisis, bank bust and we have to beg for an IMF bailout will rapidly follow.

What a shock. Listening to the news this morning it was clear to me that Shell has done slightly better than expected and the market was happy. In fact Shell is up 60 this morning. Imagine my surprise when I read the "shock horror" headline, and this from a, so called, Business Reporter. Not having read the accounts I am assuming that the "exceptional items" include a great deal of write downs which of course do not affect the cash position. More information and less hyperbole would have been helpful.  Royal Dutch Shell has become the latest victim of the oil price rout after it confirmed 10,000 jobs would be axed amid its sharpest decline in income in 13 years. Pummelled by low crude prices, income for the year slumped 87pc to $1.9bn.  The oil major said earnings on a current cost of supplies basis, its preferred way of measuring profits, tumbled 56pc in the final three months of 2015 to $1.8bn, compared to $4.2bn in the previous year.  The torrid quarter took its toll on the Anglo-Dutch group, dragging its full-year profit from $19bn in 2014 to $3.8bn - an 80pc fall. Excluding exceptional items, profits for the year came in marginally below market expectations at $10.7bn. Earnings in Shell's upstream business - which seeks out and produces oil - were hindered by “the significant decline in oil and gas prices”, the group said.  Ben van Beurden, chief executive, said: “We are making substantial changes in the company reorganising our upstream, and reducing costs and capital investment, as we refocus Shell, and respond to lower oil prices”.