RBS announce record corporate loss…

From the euro zone we have already seen this morning consumer confidence fall to a record low of -33 in Feb; however German unemployment came in better than expected with a loss of 40,000 jobs in the months against a consensus of 60,000.   Still the figures are weak and businesses have tended to cut hours and salaries rather than make redundancies.  Later today we have a flurry of economic news from the US in the form of jobless claims, new home sales and durable goods (cost of orders received by manufacturers for long term goods).