Business

Japanese conglomerate Hitachi has reported a strong rise in pre-tax profits for the six months to end of September. The firm pulled in 209.51 yen (£1.2bn), up 54.6% on the same period last year.

How did Rangers comes within 48 hours of administration and need a £2m loan from Newcastle United owner Mike Ashley? BBC Sport Scotland's Chris McLaughlin explains all.

The UK economy's productivity has suffered because companies have hired too many people, according to a report by PwC. Anthony Bruce from the group says businesses need to start using things like big data analytics to work out what their future demand is going to be and managing their workforces appropriately.

Steph McGovern is spending the morning in Frankfurt for Breakfast, talking about Lidl and Aldi's growth in the UK. A German retail analyst tells her that the budget chains have pretty much reached a peak in Germany, while the are still expected to see significant growth in the UK.

Britain's biggest trade union, Unison, has accused councils of failing to ensure that care workers are paid the national minimum wage. Responses to a Freedom of Information (FOI) request show that only 6% of local authorities insist that homecare providers pay carers for time spent travelling between clients. Unison says travelling can take up 30% of a carer's shift.

Markets in Europe have opened higher.

• The FTSE 100 is up 30 points at 6,432
• The Dax in Frankfurt is up 57 points at 9,125
• The Cac 40 in Paris is 8 points higher at 4,121

Sales of LG mobiles have driven the company's net profits up by 87% in the third quarter of this year. The firm's handset unit shifted 16.8 million smartphones during that period.

Business Insider highlights details of WhatsApp's financial performance in Facebook's results, released last night. The messaging service, bought by Facebook for about $22bn earlier this year, made a net loss of $138 million in 2013, bringing in just $10.2 in revenues.

John Holland-Kaye, chief executive of Heathrow, is on Today. He says the drop in pre-tax profits is "entirely driven by some one-off adjustments" and re-financing, which, he claims, is the "nature of modern business". Mr Holland-Kaye adds that shopping is a big part of Heathrow's income, but although it "helps to keep passenger charges down," it is "not what we are here for".

Next says it now expects to make between £750m to £790m in pre-tax profits this year, 3% lower than the guidance it previously gave.

Nintendo has just reported a $2m profit for the three months to September, raising hopes that it could soon record its first annual profit in four years. All eyes are now on the crucial Christmas period, with new games for its 3DS and Wii U consoles set for release.

Pre-tax profits at Heathrow have fallen to £58m in the nine months to end of September, down from £266m in the same period last year. The revamp of Terminal 2 makes up part of the shortfall, as does re-financing. Heathrow's traffic rose 1.5% to 55.7 million passengers.

Next has reported a 5.4% rise in sales for the third quarter - much less than the 10% it had previously hoped for. It has also downgraded its profit and sales forecasts for the year thanks to the unseasonably warm weather that has continued into October.

Air France is feeling the effect of the two-week long pilots' strike that took place last month. It's third quarter operating profit more than halved, falling to €247m from €641m in the same period last year. The airline estimates the strike reduced revenues by more than €400m.

Retailer Next is due to report its results for the third quarter at about 07:00. Just a month ago it said warm weather had already hit sales of coats and scarves in September, and that if it was still warm in October, its full-year profits could be hit. More bad news to come?

"It was a minority of people," says Richard Jeffrey of Cazenove Capital Management, in response to Guy Spier's claims that Wall Street and the City are rife with bad behaviour. "That was not true of the firm where I worked," counters Spier. "We served a very small minority of our investors well, and the large majority did very badly".

Can you be a successful investment banker without selling your soul? Guy Spier, who worked on Wall Street in the run-up to the financial crisis, tells Wake Up to Money there is a "vortex of emotion and greed that push people to do things they just wouldn't do anywhere else". He says Warren Buffett showed him the way to do business without abandoning morality.

Jürgen Fitschen and Anshu Jain, Deutsche Bank's co-chief executives, are matter-of-fact about the firm's net income loss. It was "materially impacted by provisions as we continued to work toward resolution of litigation matters related to legacy issues" they say. The added that "core bank underlying performance was solid".

What did QE achieve? Andrew Huszar, a former Federal Reserve official responsible for executing the bond-buying programme, has changed his mind. "I fear that all we've done is just kick the can down the road," he tells the Today programme. "Effectively the Fed was pumping money into Wall Street banks. There is a question of whether all that money has helped the man in the street."

Germany's biggest lender, Deutsche Bank has reported a net loss of €92m for the last quarter, as legal costs arising in part from fines in relation to the manipulation of the Libor rate (basically the rate at which banks lend to each other) outstripped earnings. It has paid out around €7bn since 2012 in relation to the scandal.

Anna Bowes, from the personal finance website Savings Champion, tells Mickey on Wake Up to Money that new UK "pensioner bonds", which are expected to offer a 4% return, are "extremely generous". For those with cash savings, her advice is: "It's important to switch, only by switching will that help to drive the competition... banks and building societies might try a little bit harder".

The big news for US investors last night was the results from Facebook. It's shares fell 10% in after-hours trading after it said costs would rise despite reporting a big jump in profits on the back of rising advertising revenues.

The US central bank - the Federal Reserve - is expected to announce today that it will end its programme of pumping money into the financial system - known as quantitative easing (QE). Since the first round it has pumped around $3.5tn into the system. Jennifer Vail, from US Bank Wealth Management, tells Wake Up to Money that while companies have done well out of QE, "for those who are not investing in the market it has not had that significant an impact", although the benefits may yet trickle down.

Computer games-maker Nintendo is expected to announce a profit when it reports its earnings later. The BBC's Ali Moore in Singapore says she's no gamer, but knows that the Japanese firm has struggled to make money in recent years. The big issue for Nintendo is making its games available through smartphones, she says, something analysts have been requesting for a while.

As so many of you did yesterday, get in touch on bizlivepage@bbc.co.uk or tweet us @BBCBusiness.

Morning everyone. We'll be covering results from Facebook in the US, Nintendo in Asia and Next on the UK High Street this morning. We'll also be looking ahead to the end of Quantitative Easing (QE - we'll give you a refresher later) at the US Fed, expected to be confirmed later today. Stay tuned for all of that.