EUROPE - France, Italy, Spain and Belgium have temporarily banned short-selling of financial stocks in response to sharp share price falls across Europe.

GLOBAL - Markets have rallied overnight and this morning as the Federal Reserve announced it would hold interest rates at close to zero until 2013.

US - Bill Gross, Bill Miller and Warren Buffett have clashed over Standard & Poor's downgrade of the US' credit rating.

UK - Barclays saw its pre-tax profits fall by a third during the first half of the year, with PPI claims and reduced bond trading activity hitting earnings.

Barings' Toby Nangle has joined Threadneedle as head of multi-asset.

Threadneedle is preparing to take on the management of LV='s retail and institutional fund range.

EUROPE - European banks and finance officials are discussing a proposal to replace existing Greek debt with a different type of bond to get around ratings agencies' reservations about a planned rollover, Reuters reports.

Vanguard has launched the LifeStrategy range, a suite of five fund of index funds with low annual management charges.

GLOBAL - PIMCO's Bill Gross has urged investors to look to emerging market debt as low rates and rising inflation present an immediate threat to portfolios and treasuries are set to be "overvalued for decades".

EUROPE - Jean Claude Trichet, the president of the European Central Bank, has defended yesterday's 25 basis point hike in interest rates as good for the eurozone, as EU leaders prepare for talks on the bailout of Portugal.