FINMA says it is "coordinating closely with authorities in other countries" because "multiple banks around the world" could be implicated. The regulator says it will give no further details on the probe or the banks involved. 12.17 European markets have switched into the black having slipped in morning trading. The FTSE 100 is now up 0.24pc In Germany the Dax is up 0.08pc In France the Cac is up 0.61pc In Spain the Ibex is up 0.63pc In Italy the FTSE Mib is up 1.44pc. 11.56 Analysts estimate that when Twitter debuts on public markets, its valuation will hit around $10bn. So who will get rich? Evan Williams - hold 56,909,847 shares, or 12pc Williams was Twitter's CEO until 2010, when current CEO Dick Costolo took the helm. He is now working on a publishing platform Medium, which is dedicated to long-form content. Benchmark - holds 31,568,740 shares, or 6.7pc Venture firm Benchmark started investing in Twitter in 2009 when it was valued in the $200m to $250m range. This stake includes shares owned by partner Peter Fenton, who led the firm's investment in consumer-internet play Yelp. Holds a board seat at Twitter. You can view the rest of the list here. Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey 11.34 More on Twitter's IPO - the FT has done a great interactive chart to see how the social media site's numbers stack up against Facebook and Linkedin. More charts here (£). 11.30 A quick summary of Italian, German and US government courtesy of FT's Peter Spiegel. 11.12 So Twitter is is seeking to raise up to $1bn at its initial public offering later this year, which is expected to value the company at north of $10bn despite the fact it is still considerably loss-making. We have created an interactive graphic for you to be able to see just how loss-making it is. Its fundraising target was revealed in the company's pre-IPO "S-1" filing, which was lodged in secret in September and disclosed to the public on Thursday night. The social media business did not say where it will list, but it confirmed it will use the ticker "TWTR." According to the 164-page document, Twitter notched up revenues of $316m in 2012, slightly ahead of analysts" expectations, which had put the figure at around $250m, but it made a loss of $80m. The San Francisco company lost an additional $69.3m in the first six months of 2013, as it turned over $253m. Analysts expect revenues to hit $500m by the end of the year and $1bn in 2014. 10.47 Portugal's Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has told parliament that the economy has expanded in the third quarter after posting its first growth in the preceding three-month period that cut short a long recession He also told MPs that despite an expected rise in unemployment this year, the country has created more jobs over the past year in another positive signal for the economy, reports Reuters. He spoke after Portugal's international lenders approved the country's performance under a bailout in their latest review on Thursday, but rejected government requests to ease fiscal goals. Pedro Passos Coelho 10.32 Back in the stock market, shares in Standard Life have recorded the biggest gain in the FTSE 100 following positive analyst comment from JPMorgan Cazenove. The heavyweight broker said: We reiterate our overweight recommendation on Standard Life as we think it will continue to benefit from 1) UK operational leverage, 2) growth potential in Standard Life Investments ("SLI") and 3) a secure dividend. We estimate that earnings at the new style UK business will treble to £262m by 2015. Standard Life shares are up 2.1pc. 10.25 In Italy the Senate Committee meeting is over already. Vote now expected this afternoon. Berlusconi could be expelled from parliament before the week is out. 10.20 Following the news that Darren Shapland has stood down as Carpetright CEO (see 07.54), Lord Harris says he doesn't know why Shapland wouldn't commit long term to the business. More from our retail correspondent Graham Ruddick. 10.03 Over to Italy where Silvio Berlusconi's future in politics hangs in the balance s a Senate panel convenes a public session on whether an August tax-fraud conviction requires his expulsion from the upper house. The hearing caps a week of turmoil in Rome that followed Berlusconi's failed bid to bring down the five-month-old coalition he forged with Prime Minister Enrico Letta. The effort collapsed two days ago due to a mutiny in his People of Liberty party led by Deputy Premier Angelino Alfano, leaving the billionaire vulnerable to counter-attack. The 23-member committee started around 9:30am in Rome. Berlusconi is not attending, Bloomberg reports. The committee has 48 hours to decide, according to the Senate website, though a vote may come by this afternoon. If the committee recommends stripping Berlusconi of his Senate seat, the matter will be put before the entire Senate for a final vote in the next few weeks. Silvio Berlusconi 09.35 Barclays has announced that investors have snapped up 94.6pc of the shares it is selling in its £5.8bn rights issue, which means the banks managing the fund-raising will have to sell the remainder of the shares today. Ian Gordon, Investec's well-followed banking analyst, has today upgraded his recommendation on the lender to "add" from "buy" and said: Although we continue to regard the imposition of a June 2014 deadline to meet a new and contrived 3pc adjusted leverage target as unjustified, the rights issue it triggered appears to have been a reasonably successful exercise in damage limitation. Barclays shares have dipped 0.6pc. 09.20 UK car sales are at the highest level in more than five years. Dealerships shifted the highest number of new cars for five and a half years in September, up 12.1pc on last year to 403,136 registrations It is the 19th straight monthly gain for the market and September was the best performing month since March 2008, according to figures released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. And it's good news for UK industry - one in every seven cars sold in the country last month was British-built. Source: SMMT 09.01 Back with Carpetright, analysts have expressed surprise at the departure of boss Darren Shapland and disappointment with the profits warning. The experts at Oriel Securities said: The departure of Mr Shapland is a disappointment as he was helping shape the business on a recovery path within the UK through a series of self-help measures. On the profit warning, N+1 Singer analysts said: With optimism about future recovery having begun to feed into the share price we clearly expect today's shock to see a lot of recent gains reverse. Carpetright shares are now down 10.6pc. 08.52 German construction PMI is out and indicates that the eurozone's largest economy is slowing. The PMI has fallen from a 17-month high of 55.1 in August to 52.1 in September. Depressing total industry activity in September was a decline in civil engineering work, the level of which had risen solidly in the prior month, according to Markit, the author of the report. Both housing and commercial activity continued to increase, although rates of growth slipped from August's recent highs. Despite the slowdown, the PMI is still above the crucial 50 mark - which separates growth from contraction. Phil Smith, economist at Markit said: The primary drag on total industry activity in September was a renewed decline in civil engineering. This was perhaps pay-back for such a strong performance in this category of construction one month earlier, when levels of work rose at the fastest pace in close to two-and-a-half years. Higher activity in housing and commercial projects offset the reduction in civil engineering, but rates of growth were slower in both cases, going some way to explain the lull in job creation observed during the month. 08.39 Carpetright shares are down 70.5, or 10.47pc, to 603p following the shock profits warning and Shaplands resignation as CEO (see 07.54). The shares opened down more than 15pc but have since regained some ground. Our retail correspondent Graham Ruddick says it could be bad news for the wider UK economy. 08.30 Citi has put out a note this morning declaring the euro as an "island of stability" - really. Currency traders sold the dollar, sending it down to 97.00 yen from 97.27 yen in New York late Thursday, while the euro rose to $1.3627 from $1.3618. The euro bought 132.20 yen compared with 132.49 yen. Euro v dollar over past month. Source: Bloomberg 08.21 With the FTSE 100 slipping 0.2pc lower in early trade, Jonathan Sudaria, a trader at Capital Spreads, says: Whilst the repercussions of a shut down didn't seem to worry markets too much, the rigid stubbornness from politicians has traders fearing that the same uncompromising mentality will carry over to the debt limit debate. With all the scheduled US economic data off the calendar and only Eurozone PPI out in Europe, the driver of today's session will be how traders want to position themselves going into the weekend and what kind of risk they want to expose themselves too. 08.18 European markets are open and as expected they have edged lower. The FTSE 100 is flat in early trading. In Germany the Dax is down 0.1pc In France the Cac is flat. In Spain the Ibex is down 0.1pc In Italy the FTSE Mib is down 0.3pc 08.15 Over to Greece - S&P says the economy is rebalancing and reaffirms its rating on the debt-laden country. 08.05 In a trading update overnight, Samsung Electronics has said it expects to report a record operating profit of Won10.1trillion ($9.4bn) in the third quarter - more than analysts were expecting. Tate & Lyle has said it expects H1 op profit to be slightly lower than last year after a cold spring and a slow start to summer hit the US beverage sector. Wood Group has said it expects to report full-year earnings growth in the engineering division of between 10pc and 15pc. The company said it is confident of achieving 2013 performance in line with expectations, lifted by US shale gas, and says outlook for 2014 unchanged 07.54 Darren Shapland has stepped down as chief executive of Carpetright. Chairman Lord Harris, who will become a full time executive chairman, wishes Shapland well but says he is "disappointed that he is leaving." Graham Harris, trading director, is joining the board as chief operating officer. It's all a bit rushed and the board has said it is considering "consequential changes to management responsibilities." In a separate statement the company has warned that full-year profits will be "significantly below previous expectations," as it reported a 2.5pc drop in like-for-like sales in the past quarter. Total sales dropped 4.1pc. 07.45 Quite a bit of corporate news around this morning. Barclays has got its rights issue away - 94.63pc take up by shareholders with underwriters mopping up the rest today. 07.32 Sticking with Japan, a statement released following a two-day meeting of the Bank of Japan says the economy is still "recovering moderately" while overseas economies were "heading toward a pick-up." The central bank held off fresh monetary easing measures despite fears about the impact of a sales tax hike on the country's economic recovery and a Washington budget crisis that could see a US default. 07.25 Japanese Finance Minister Taro Aso has urged the United States to resolve political gridlock in Washington, warning of grim "consequences" for the global economy if it leads to a debt default. The present impasse, where the refusal of a right-wing rump of the Republican Party in Congress to pass a budget bill has resulted in the first government shutdown in 17 years, is already affecting the currency markets, Aso said, warning it could worsen. I think this could likely result in a situation where the dollar will be sold and the yen will be bought. But, "my feeling is... the debt limit will have an internationally significant impact," Aso said, referring to the looming October 17 deadline by which the US government needs lawmakers to raise the ceiling on the amount of money it can borrow. Unless it is resolved swiftly, we will see various consequences. The yen has already soared to multi-month highs against the dollar, as traders move out of the greenback and into the safe haven of the Japanese currency. The falling dollar is bad news for Japan's exporters, a key driver of growth in the world's third-largest economy, because it erodes their repatriated profits. 07.10 It is Day 4 in the Big Bother house. The US government is still shutdown and investors are starting to pull their money out. US markets all closed in the red yesterday and Asian markets are down on Friday, with European markets expected to open in negative territory. US markets did manage to regain some ground on talk that Republican House leader John Boehner was determined to do all he could to avert a government default. There was some suggestion that he might be prepared to push a bill through to end the budget deadlock and raise the debt ceiling with the help from the moderates within his own party and all the Democrats in the chamber, in defiance of the majority of his party, though it seems that this would probably only happen much nearer the October 17th deadline. The shutdown also means that there will not be non-farm payroll job figures from the US today, and with no data to analyse, Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Market says it is less and less likely that we will see any tapering of the US Fed's' $85bn monthly asset purchases. The longer the impasse goes on the more likely this current stock market weakness could start to accelerate. As it is some economic indicators are starting to show some worrying weakness, with yesterday's ISM services number for September coming in below expectations. With no September jobs report today, due to the shutdown, and a rather disappointing September ADP report earlier this week at 166k, concerns about the US economy are growing, making it much less likely that we will see the start of any Fed tapering this year. After all with no data to analyse, as well as adjustments in the coming months to compensate for the disruption it will be much harder for the central bank to arrive at any meaningful conclusions as to the state of the US economy, as well as the extent of any damage the shutdown has done to it.