After sliding more than a third in July after it was revealed that Nigeria focused Afren’s CEO and COO were being suspended for receiving improper payments, today proved to be yet another bad day for the company as it issued its interim management statement.

Salamander is up 18% to 95p after earlier climbing as high as 100p after a report in the Sunday Times yesterday reported interest in buying it from Ophir Energy, the UK listed company, and Cepsa, the Spanish group, were today confirmed in an RNS.

More bad news from Tesco this morning battered the supermarket sector again and sentiment wasn’t helped by a poor trading statement from Premier Foods, a key supplier to the grocery sector.

British American Tobacco today issued its Interim Management statement for the period covering the first nine months of 2014 and it wasn’t pretty reading as it reported lower revenue caused by adverse foreign exchange movements and weak volumes in western Europe.

Apple keeps on delivering with another strong set of earnings for its fiscal fourth quarter ended September 27th with revenues rising by 12%, helped by strong sales of iPhone. Earnings per share growth of 20% and a record $13.3 billion in cash flow were delivered in the quarter.

Investors in Google were feeling a little underwhelmed by the company’s third quarter earnings with the shares down about 1% to $524 in pre market trading.