Before we close the blog for the day, here is a summary of the main events. Predictably, it’s been Brexit focused.

• The day began with a message from the French finance minister, Michel Sapin, who said US banks had told him they were definitely planning to move operations out of the UK now that Brexit looks certain to go ahead.

• The pound has suffered no major lurches, hovering around the $1.22 mark (although it did dip below at one point). It is currently at $1.2208.

• European markets have built on gains throughout the day, with all the major indices up more than 1% and in some cases up more than 2%. Europe’s STOXX 600 is up 1.6% at 341, while the FTSE 100 is up 1% at 7,048.

• Mark Carney, the Bank of England governor, told an audience in Nottingham that he is willing to tolerate an inflation overshoot above the Bank’s 2% target.

• The former chancellor George Osborne decisively threw his weight behind Heathrow airport expansion.

• US retail sales rebounded in September, while UK construction data showed a surprise fall in output in August.

A final point: Traders have been offloading government bonds today following Carney’s inflation comments and fears of a hard Brexit.

The yield on benchmark 10-year bonds climbed to 1.14%, up from 0.97% a week ago.

On that note, we’ll close up. Thank you for reading the blog and for all the comments. You can follow all the latest breaking Guardian business stories here. Have a great weekend and please join us again on Monday. AM

Wall Street has opened higher, with better than expected results from Citigroup and JP Morgan lifting financial stocks.

• Dow Jones: +0.8% at 18,238

• S&P 500: +0.6% at 2,144

• Nasdaq: +0.6% at 4,830

The Prime Minister has met the chief executive of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, to discuss the impact of Brexit.

It follows a warning from the Japanese carmaker that it could pull further investment at its Sunderland plant, unless the UK government guarantees compensation for any Brexit-related tariffs it might face in the future.

A Nissan spokesman said:

The purpose of this meeting between Mr Ghosn and Mrs May is to ensure both Nissan and the UK government have an aligned way forward that meets the needs of both the company and the country.

We do not expect any specific agreement to be communicated followin g this initial introductory meeting of the chief executive and the prime minister.

Retail sales in the US rose by 0.6% in September, following a 0.2% drop in August.

The increase was in line with economists’ expectations, and will support expectations that the Fed could raise rates in December.

US data for factory gate inflation also suggested price pressures are starting to build, which is likely to further fuel expectations of a hike.

James Knightley, senior economist for the UK and US at ING:

Overall, the reasonably firm retail sales number and slightly higher inflation data support the idea of a Federal Reserve rate hike in December – Fed funds futures currently pricing a 66.7% probability of this happening.

The only things that can really stop momentum building for such a move would be a market unfriendly election outcome and softness in the two payrolls reports between now and the December Fed meeting.

Britain is committed to leaving the EU, a spokeswoman for Theresa May has said, brushing off a suggestion by the European council president, Donald Tusk, that the country might change its mind.

Tusk said on Thursday that Britain was facing a choice between hard Brexit or no Brexit.

May’s spokeswoman said:

The prime minister has been very clear ... that the British people have made their decision and we are now going to get on with that, with taking the UK out of the EU and on making the most of the opportunities ahead.

The spokeswoman pointed out that Tusk had said Brexit talks should be approached in good faith:

That is the sort of spirit the prime minister wants to encourage and foster with other European partners, that we approach this constructively.

There are opportunities both for the UK and for the EU with the decision to leave and so we now need to come together, work together effectively to agree on a new arrangement, a new relationship that can work in the interests of all of us.

Mark Carney has said he is willing to tolerate an overshoot of the Bank of England’s 2% inflation target.

The governor’s comments suggest that the Bank’s policymakers will focus on supporting economic growth through low interest rates following the Brexit vote, rather than acting to bring inflation down.

Speaking at an event in Nottingham, Carney said:

Our judgment in the summer was that we could have seen another 400,000-500,000 people unemployed over the course of the next few years. So we’re willing to tolerate a bit of overshoot in inflation over the course of the next few years in order to avoid that situation, to cushion the blow.

UK inflation was 0.6% in August, well below the 2% target. But the Bank and other commentators have warned that inflation will soon start to rise, as the sharp fall in the pound since the Brexit vote starts to feed through to higher import prices.

Carney also conceded that it’s “going to get difficult” for people on lower incomes as prices start to rise at a faster pace.

The former chancellor George Osborne has made it very clear that he is not ready for a quiet life on the backbenches.

In a series of tweets on the controversial and long running subject of UK airport expansion, Osborne decisively backed Heathrow.

A formal decision is expected next Tuesday ...

As far as investors are concerned, Tesco came out on top following its spat with product supplier Unilever over prices.

Tesco is the FTSE 100’s best performer this morning, with shares up 3.9%. Unilever on the other hand is near the bottom of the pack, with shares down 0.4%.

Construction output fell 1.5% in August, surprisings economists who had forecast a 0.2% rise.

The slightly better news was that the Office for National Statistics revised up the figure for July from zero to 0.5% growth.

Kate Davies, a statistician with the ONS, said the fall didn’t appear to be related to the Brexit vote:

Construction output has fallen back quite sharply in recent months and contracted by 1.5% in August. As the fall this month is led by infrastructure, it seems unlikely that post-referendum uncertainties are having an impact.

Monthly construction data can be quite erratic, though, so we would warn against trying to read too much into one set of figures.

The annual rate of growth in construction output was 0.2% in August, better than July’s -1% but much weaker than the 1.5% predicted by economists.

Higher food prices pushed official inflation in China to 1.9% in September, from 1.3% in August.

It was higher than the 1.6% predicted by economists, and helped to ease investor fears about the health of the world’s second largest economy after disappointing trade data on Thursday unnerved global markets.

Producer prices (or factory gate prices) also rose unexpectedly in September for the first time in almost five years because of higher commodity prices.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said it was good news:

In an encouraging sign this morning’s Chinese consumer prices inflation data does appear to show that inflation is gaining traction, with CPI coming in at 1.9%, above expectations.

Factory gate prices still remain sluggish, though they have finally made it into positive territory at 0.1%, the first time that has happened since February 2012. Chinese PPi prices have been slowly improving for several months now so this return to positive territory is welcome news, especially so when prices were -5.9% at the beginning of this year.

After hitting an record intraday high on Tuesday, the FTSE 100 slipped back below 7,000 on Thursday when disappointing trade data from China hit mining stocks.

It’s a different story this morning, with European markets up across the board:

• FTSE 100: +0.6% at 7,021

• FTSE 250: +0.4% at 17,956

• Germany’s DAX: +0.6% at 10,476

• France’s CAC: +0.7% at 4,438

• Italy’s FTSE MIB: +0.5% at 16,353

• Spain’s IBEX: +0.9% at 8,683

• Europe’s STOXX 600: +0.7% at 338

The pound is down slightly against the dollar this morning, by 0.4%, but is just about managing to stay above the $1.22 level. It is currently at $1.2206.

It is also holding steady against the euro, down -0.1% at €1.1075.

European markets have opened higher. Full details to follow.

Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of the world economy, the financial markets, the eurozone and business.

Marmite-gate might have been settled for now (read here how yesterday’s dramatic events unfolded), but there are other tales this morning of how Brexit might negatively affect Britain.

The French finance minister Michel Sapin has told a press conference in Paris that US banks are definitely pressing ahead with plans to move some operations out of the UK in favour of other European countries.

Sapin was in Washington last week for the IMF meetings and he says that now that Britain’s exit form the EU seems certain, US banks are busy making plans to leave the UK.

Paris, of course, would welcome the banks with open arms, but it will undoubtedly encounter stiff competition from other cities such as Frankfurt.

Of course we’ve heard it all before that banks will consider moving out of London, but Sapin suggests the plans have moved up a gear.

Here is what he had to say about US banks:

For them, until now, the question was ‘will Brexit take place? Will it really be implemented? You talk about two years but maybe it will last three or four years?’.

That’s over now, there’s no more of that. It’s no longer ‘will there be’ or ‘if’ there’s a Brexit. It’s ‘there will be a Brexit in two years and after two years we will have to take decisions.

Sapin said some banks had already decided that activities will be transferred to the continent.

Those are their words, not mine. [It is an] inevitable outcome, whatever the result of the Brexit negotiations.