Germany Markit Manufacturing PMI came in at 52.9, above expectations (52.6) in November

The Bank of England (BoE) today released the results of annual 'stress tests'. Five out of the seven banks tested were found to have no capital inadequacies. These five banks namely- HSBC, Barclays, Lloyds Banking Group, Santander and Nationwide are also not required to take any action. The BoE noted that the other two banks namely- Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered managed to pass the tests only because they had taken steps to improve their capital ratios mid-way in the process. Both these banks are not thus not required to submit new capital plan.