Rating agency Moody’s on Friday downgraded Italy’s credit rating in a widely expected move that left it one notch above junk territory.

Canada’s next generation of warships will be built on a design by Britain’s BAE Systems after Ottawa selected an international consortium led by Lockheed Martin as its preferred bidder.

Major European museums have agreed to send contested cultural artefacts back to Nigeria on loan for a new museum which they will also help to build.

Despite a promising start, Wall Street shed early gains on Friday as tech stocks retreated to finish mostly lower — but the S&P 500 & Dow each snapped a three week losing streak.

Mexico’s peso fell to its lowest level in five weeks after ratings agency Fitch revised down its outlook on debt held by state oil company Pemex to “negative” from “stable”.

The International Monetary Fund on Friday announced it had reached preliminary agreement on a new $3.9bn assistance package for Ukraine, whose government hours earlier took the politically unpopular decision of meeting a key condition of the fund by raising household gas tariffs by 23.5 per cent.

The growth of open-ended funds that promise investors instant liquidity despite holding potentially illiquid assets represented a “major new vulnerability” across the G20, Mark Carney warned on Friday.

Barrick Gold’s proposed $6bn takeover of Randgold Resources, the Africa-focused gold company run by Mark Bristow, could be “hugely beneficial for Acacia Mining, according to its chief executive Peter Geleta.

So much for that rebound.

Wall Street gave up its early gains and was trading mixed by lunchtime in New York as tech stocks resumed their slide.

The EU is set to hold talks with the US to end a decades-long row over restrictions on beef imports into the European market, after US farmers complained they were not getting the promised benefits of a previous deal.

Standard Chartered is preparing a fresh round of job cuts to reduce costs in response to rising pressure from investors who are frustrated over the emerging market bank’s flagging performance.

Households in Ukraine will face higher natural gas tariffs in a move aimed at shoring up the stretched finances of the country and easing the concerns of international debt holders, the government announced on Friday.

Wall Street rebounded on Friday on the back of upbeat earnings and after a risk-off move the previous session, as another choppy week on Wall Street nears its close.

Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler issued its second profit warning this year on Friday, causing its shares to fall more than 3 per cent to a five-year low. 

Air France has agreed a wage deal with the majority of its unions, ending a costly stand-off over pay that led to the resignation of the airline’s previous chief executive.

Italy’s government bond market rebounded strongly after a sell-off earlier on Friday that sent borrowing costs to a four-and-a-half-year high.

Sales of previously owned homes in the US fell more than expected last month to the lowest level since November 2015, data on Friday showed.

The EU unconditionally cleared Microsoft’s $7.5bn acquisition of GitHub, approving the unlikely combination of the world’s largest software company and the biggest online repository of open-source software code.

The EU’s top court has ordered Poland to freeze a contested overhaul of its Supreme Court that is at the heart of a bitter dispute between Warsaw and Brussels.

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has reaffirmed its attendance at next week’s Future Investment Initiative conference in Saudi Arabia, even as scores of western delegates pull out over the suspected murder of dissident Jamal Khashoggi.

New data on Canadian inflation and retail sales both surprised on the downside on Friday, which disappointed markets and could knock back expectations that the country’s central bank will push ahead with another interest rate hike this month.

US stock index futures were higher ahead of the opening bell on Friday as Wall Street looked to bounce back from the heavy losses notched in the prior session.

The president of Toyota has warned about the consequences for Japanese-owned car plants if Britain leaves the European Union without a deal.

Procter & Gamble on Friday unveiled a new round of price rises on products from toothpaste to deodorant, warning of relentless input cost pressure even as the US consumer products bellwether produced its biggest sales increase in five years.