A fire in February in a warehouse owned by Ocado, the grocery logistics company, has cost the company millions, and now it threatens the jobs of hundreds of workers.

Up to 400 jobs are at risk at Ocado after the online grocer admitted it would take two years to rebuild the hi-tech distribution centre which was destroye by a fire in February, writes the Guardian’s Sarah Butler.

Read the full story here:

Trouble in trainer-land as Britain’s competition watchdog says it plans to review if JD Sports’ acquisition of smaller rival Footasylum “substantially” reduced competition in the sector.

The Competition and Markets Authority served an initial enforcement order in relation to the deal, which was announced in March and valued Footasylum at up to £90m, Reuters reported.

Initial enforcement orders are put in place to prevent businesses from integrating after a possible merger while the watchdog decides if it needs to launch an investigation.

Wall Street has fallen steeply across the board at the open.

The Nasdaq fell 0.87% after the opening bell, while the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 both fell by 0.75%.

Britain’s most powerful business lobby group, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has had its go at the government for the latest Brexit failure.

“This is no time for holidays,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, the CBI’s director general.

Another day of failed politics, another dispiriting day for British business.

Six wasted weeks while uncertainty paralyses our economy.

The May parliamentary recess should be cancelled and used to agree a deal as soon as possible – whether through indicative votes or the withdrawal agreement.

Another well shorted stock is Thomas Cook, which has come under the cosh today from a Citi analyst who believes the company is worthless.

Wall Street bank Citigroup produced a research note advising investors to sell shares in the company, which reported a £1.5bn loss earlier this week, citing a drop in holiday bookings due to Brexit uncertainty. You can read the full write-up here:

Anchorage Capital, AQR Capital Management, Capital Fund Management, TT International and Whitebox Advisors hold shorts equivalent to just over 6% of issued shares.

Deliveroo founder Will Shu is probably feeling pretty good today, after Amazon became the lead backer in its latest fundraising round – at a valuation of a cool $4bn.

But he is not the only one in the City who benefited from the news: hedge funds who have bet against Deliveroo’s rival, Just Eat, will have booked a nice profit.

Some of the biggest names in investment have shorted Just Eat stock in recent months, including BlackRock, Odey Asset Management and AQR Capital Management, as shown by this handy graph from short data provider Breakout Point. Total shorts are now at 6.4%.

Another of the big hedge funds, Marshall Wace, has done even better, with bets against European rivals Takeaway.com and Delivery Hero, on top of Just Eat. All have suffered today from the threat of Amazon elbowing into their markets.

An update on Boeing, which is still in the grips of one of its worst crises after its 737 Max jets were involved in two fatal crashes.

The American planemaker has completed a software update for its 737 Max jets, which have been grounded worldwide since March.

The planemaker said it was in the process of submitting a pilot training plan to the US Federal Aviation Administration and would work with the regulator to schedule its certification test flight. More info here:

The pound has traded in a narrow range of $1.29-1.32 since Brexit was delayed in late March, but no longer.

Today’s four-month low – 0.4% down against the US dollar to hit a low of $1.2735 – puts the pound on course for its worst week during 2019. It’s mostly down to Brexit, say analysts.

“What we’re seeing is the market pricing in a higher probability of an exit without a deal,” Adam Cole, chief currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets, said, noting the growing risk that the bill would fail to pass and May would depart before parliament goes into recess in late July.

It looks increasingly likely she will be replaced by a pro-Brexit PM with no election, and that automatically increases the chances of a no-deal Brexit.

Are we heading for a general election? That is certainly one possibility in these crazy political times.

Simon Harvey, FX market analyst at Monex Europe, says: “How far sterling continues to fall depends on the decisiveness of the Tory party in replacing May and whether that brings a heightened threat of a general election.”

Let’s go through the steps (paraphrasing Simon’s analysis):

• If the agreement is passed, which remains a slim chance at best, it is unlikely that Theresa May will stay on as prime minister.
• May’s abdication would increase the chances of a Brexiteer such as Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab taking over the reins and potentially imposing a harder Brexit with the political declaration still left to play for.
• This scenario would likely prove unpalatable for most MPs in Westminster and would increase the chances of a vote of no-confidence being triggered in Parliament.

But, alternatively:

• Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement could fail to make it past parliament for the fourth time this year, something that seems to be the market base case at present.
• Another failed attempt by May would surely put the finishing touches on her tenure, with the 1922 committee likely to intervene.

Either way, sterling will likely suffer.

At this point business groups are looking for whatever silver linings they can.

Stephen Phipson, chief executive of Make UK, the manufacturing lobby group, described avoiding a no-deal exit in March as “a success”, but now thinks a bad situation for manufacturing could be turning into “something even worse”.

Many firms have used all their working capital to build stockpiles of parts and materials and then exhausted lines of credit to pay for the warehousing to keep them in.

Firms are despairing at the lack of movement from Westminster, he added.

The consequences of this are almost daily announcements of the great damage being done in terms of lost orders and, an evaporation of confidence in the UK as a place to invest. The price for this will be paid in constituencies right across the UK.

The reactions from the business world to the Brexit talks collapse are starting to come in. As you might imagine, they are not exactly positive...

It’s a “fresh disappointment heaped upon the pile of previous disappointments”, according to Edwin Morgan, interim director general of the Institute of Directors.

With a parliamentary deadlock, seeking cross-party consensus was always a worthwhile endeavour – but it makes it all the more frustrating for business leaders to see the talks result in little more than precious time used up.

The business group is, unsurprisingly, demanding that government tell business its plans – before MPs break for the summer recess.

It’s time to make a decision on the future of this country; we can’t live in limbo forever. Politicians must remember that we’re eating into potential negotiating time. Equally, no deal, which a clear majority of our members say would negatively impact their firms, is still on the table.

US stock market futures are pointing to a tough day on Wall Street.

Nasdaq futures are now down by 0.7%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 futures are both down by 0.6%.

Paradoxically, the recent flare-up in trade tensions between the US and China may have been enabled by stronger economies, according to a note from NN Investment Partners.

The note said: “The improved growth momentum and strong stock market in the US and China have enabled both countries to adopt a more hard-line stance on trade again.”

Ewout van Schaick, head of multi asset at NN Investment Partners, said:

Our new base-case scenario is one of a longer period of trade uncertainty. This is likely to weigh heavily on business confidence and investment, which will weigh on global growth. The low transparency of the trade negotiations adds to the challenge investors are currently facing . We do not know what the concrete problems are and where exactly the two sides have clashed.

The negotiations will continue, and we should be prepared for a longer and perhaps more volatile process, which explains the sell-off in risky assets. In this environment, the global growth recovery that we were expecting might materialize slightly later.

An interesting snippet from China. While the UK is preoccupied with our own matters, the big driver for global markets in the past week has been the back-and-forth between the US and China on trade.

A senior official of China’s ruling Communist Party said the trade dispute with Trump’s White House could reduce China’s growth pace this year by as much as one percentage point, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (via Reuters), citing an unnamed source.

The paper said Wang Yang, a member of the Communist Party’s seven-person standing committee, told a delegation of Taiwanese businesspeople whose firms are based in China that was the worst-case scenario from the trade war.

A slowdown of that magnitude would represent a serious blow to the world economy. China is the world’s second-largest economy, and has been responsible for the largest share of global growth in recent years.

Sterling today has seen a steady drip-drip of confidence as the collapse of Labour-Conservative talks removes a possibility – however remote – for a way out of the Brexit impasse.

Against the US dollar the pound has now lost 0.34% just after midday.

And on stock markets across Europe it’s a sea of red, with the FTSE 100 down by about 0.4% halfway through the trading day.

The latest round of investment in Deliveroo could value it at as much as $4bn, as Amazon re-enters the food delivery space.

Deliveroo will use the funding to “invest heavily” in expanding its technology team at its London headquarters, further expand its geographic reach and grow its delivery-only kitchens business, write the Guardian’s Angela Monaghan and Mark Sweney.

Significantly, Deliverooo said it will also use funds to develop “new tools to offer riders flexible and well-paid work”. The company has been heavily criticised for its treatment of the 60,000 riders who make its deliveries. Riders are not employed directly and are paid per delivery. Read the full story here:

Here’s the full story on the collapse of talks between Jeremy Corbyn and Theresa May.

The focus will now move to the idea of indicative votes in the Commons to find a Brexit compromise that can pass through parliament, writes the Guardian’s Peter Walker.

According to a leaked government document seen by ITV and others, May wants to hold the talks next week, before a planned vote on a withdrawal agreement in the week starting 3 June.

Sterling is now down by about 0.3% for the day against the US dollar.

While that decline boosts the FTSE 100 – which earns most of its revenue in foreign currencies – the blue-chip index is still down by 0.26% in mid-morning trading. The FTSE 250 is down by 0.3%.

There’s a lot more detail on the collapse of the talks – including the full text of Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to Theresa May – with Andrew Sparrow on the politics live blog.

Some of the key bits of the letter:

It has become clear that, while there are some areas where compromise has been possible, we have been unable to bridge important policy gaps between us.

Even more crucially, the increasing weakness and instability of your government means there cannot be confidence in securing whatever might be agreed between us.

He wrote that the party would still consider any further proposals the government brings forwards, but the party is unlikely to swing behind them at this stage, to put it mildly.

Without significant changes, we will continue to oppose the government’s deal as we do not believe it safeguards jobs, living standards and manufacturing industry in Britain.

Thomas Cook shares have slumped even further today, after the troubled travel operator yesterday revealed losses of £1.5bn.

Shares fell by 27% in Friday trading, after a 15% collapse yesterday.

Those shares in the world’s longest-running tour company – which traces its heritage back to cabinet maker Thomas Cook’s day trips from Leicester to Loughborough in July 1841 – are worthless, according to a major investment bank.

Citigroup downgraded its rating on the stock to sell and put its target price at zero – essentially saying that the company is about to collapse.

Connor Campbell, an analyst at Spreadex, says there is a “general sense of hopelessness” around the prospects for a positive development.

The fact Theresa May is set to outline her exit date after the withdrawal agreement bill vote at the start of June means that a) cross-party talks are now almost completely dead, and b) the UK could be facing a hard-liner Brexit prime minister, especially if the European elections go as expected next week.

A reminder: the elections are not expected to go well for the Conservatives, to put it extremely kindly. Polling is showing a mass exodus of Tory voters on 23 May.

Let’s get some more from analysts on the weakness in sterling.

The pound is on track for its worst weekly decline in half a year, according to strategists Jon Gordon, Vincent Heaney, Sagar Khandelwal and Christopher Swann at UBS.

Theresa May’s fourth effort to get a withdrawal bill through – likely in the first week of June – represents one last go for the prime minister.

Though May’s EU departure plan failed to win a consensus during the previous three votes, she’s added a key sweetener this time – her own departure from 10 Downing Street.

And if you have any temptation to try a bit of currency speculation, UBS has some (rather evergreen) advice:

Given high levels of uncertainty, we advise investors against strong directional trades. We expect sterling to remain range-bound over the next six months, with no clear end to the Brexit impasse in sight.

The pound is still hovering around three-month lows against the US dollar, as we wait for the latest update on the political front.

If sterling falls below $1.2770 – its lowest so far is $1.2774 – it will represent the lowest point since mid-January.

But Ian Whittaker and Harry Read, analysts at the Liberum investment bank, say that the selloff in Just Eat is “overdone”.

They say:

As an online classified marketplace portal like AutoTrader and Rightmove, Just Eat’s market leading position will be incredibly difficult to overcome, especially given its strength in smaller towns.

What we do think is more likely than a serious threat from competitors is that Just Eat – and the other portals – are bought by bigger players looking to dominate the food delivery portal market.

Domino’s Pizza and Just Eat are not the only takeaway food providers whose shares have fallen this morning.

Shares in Netherlands-listed Takeaway.com fell by 3.3% in early trading, while shares in German company Delivery Hero fell by 4.4%.

The selloff in takeaway companies could leave Just Eat vulnerable to a takeover, says Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell – even though Amazon has already failed to break into the food delivery market with Amazon Restaurants.

The curse of Amazon strikes again. The online giant is now so dominant the mere mention of its entry into a new industry can leave incumbent companies and their shareholders quaking with fear.

It is worth remembering that Just Eat remains the market leader in the UK. However, this development ramps up the pressure on management as they reshape the business to increasingly offer delivery services alongside an online takeaway platform.

The FTSE 1oo is down by 0.34%, with Just Eat the biggest faller among the blue chips.

Mid-caps on the FTSE 250 are faring worse, down by 0.38%. Drug company Indivior is the worst-performing stock, while Domino’s Pizza has also fallen by 3.1%.

Andrew Bailey is widely regarded as one of the frontrunners in the race to be the next Bank of England governor, but his image might be tarnished by an interesting story (£) in today’s Financial Times.

Bailey, the boss of the Financial Conduct Authority, was heavily criticised by a whistleblower in the scandal surrounding fraud at HBOS, which was taken over by Lloyds.

Sally Masterton was pushed out of Lloyds after writing a report that was heavily critical of Lloyds handling of the fallout from a fraud at HBOS’s Reading branch. She wrote to Bailey to protest about her treatment by Lloyds, the FT wrote.

Kevin Hollinrake, a Conservative MP who has taken a keen interest in banks’ treatment of small businesses, criticised the regulator. He said:

Anyone under consideration for the role of Bank of England governor must be able to demonstrate a willingness to tackle wrongdoing in the banking sector without fear or favour.

Staffline has had a tough few months. Shares in the company, which supplies major supermarkets including Marks & Spencer and Tesco, were suspended in January after it announced an accounting investigation.

And another precipitous fall in today’s trading – now down 53%.

However, recruitment company Staffline is having a worse day. Shares are down by 49% at the time of writing after it issued a profit warning.

Staffline blamed Brexit. Companies are hiring people permanently rather than using temporary workers from agencies in case there are fewer workers available after Brexit, Staffline said.

The ongoing Brexit uncertainty is impacting the UK labour market and led to a number of customers transferring a significant volume of their temporary workforce into permanent employment to mitigate the risk of that labour market tightening.

Britain’s FTSE 100 falls by 0.2% at the open. Germany’s Dax falls by 0.5%, while France’s Cac 40 and Spain’s Ibex both lose 0.3%.