Meanwhile, back in London Theresa May has just finished her final speech as prime minister. Off to the Palace now to resign properly.

Wall Street has fallen at the open, but only slightly.

The Nasdaq composite lost 0.25%, the S&P 500 fell by 0.23%, and the Dow Jones industrial average fell by 0.45% at the market open – leaving it further short of a fresh record high.

US markets are just about to open (and are expected to fall) but Americans of all stripes could be forgiven for having their eyes elsewhere.

Robert Mueller, who investigated Russian interference in the last US presidential election, is currently testifying in Congress, and it is delivering on the drama.

Mueller has said that he did not exonerate President Donald Trump – contrary to the repeated claims of the president.

“Did you actually totally exonerate the president?” asked Jerry Nadler, the chairman of the House judiciary committee.

“No,” Mueller replied.

You can follow the whole hearing with the Guardian’s Joan E Greve here:

Another resignation confirmed: David Gauke is pegged to be one of the trickiest rebels for Boris Johnson.

Fleet Street has, with predictable inelegance, described him as leader of the “Gaukeward” squad committed to avoiding a no-deal Brexit.

It’s perhaps worth pointing out at this juncture that Gauke uses a unicorn picture on his Twitter page.

As traders in London return from their lunches, the FTSE 100 has recovered slightly, hovering at a loss of 0.8%.

The FTSE 250 is up by 0.3%, thanks in part to Sports Direct, which has gained almost 12% today after it said that its results on Friday will be within its previous guidance. The retailer had earlier delayed the publication of the results, to the chagrin of analysts.

On the European bourses it’s a mixed picture, with the Euro Stoxx 600 (which includes FTSE 100 companies) down by 0.1%. Germany and Italian benchmark indices both gained 0.3%, however.

GlaxoSmithKline has increased its 2019 earnings outlook after sales of its shingles vaccines, Shingrix, helped it to beat expectations for the second quarter.

The London-listed drug company sold £20m more of the vaccine than the analyst consensus reported by Reuters.

Revenues rose by 7% compared with the same quarter last year to £7.8bn, while GSK said its expectations of profit decline for 2019 compared to 2018 had improved to a fall of between 3% and 5%, an improvement from an expectedfall of 5% to 9%.

Emma Walmsley, GSK’s chief executive, said:

GSK delivered continued good operating performance in Q2 despite the loss of exclusivity of Advair. We are increasing our expectations for the year and have updated our guidance for 2019.

We remain focused on strengthening our R&D pipeline and the execution of new product launches. Positive clinical data received so far this year offer significant new opportunities for products in oncology, HIV and respiratory and we expect more important readouts in the second half of the year.

Deutsche Bank’s chief financial officer today said he expects the lender to make a loss for 2019, but to return to profit next year.

It has been a torrid time for Deutsche, with a failed merger and struggles across multiple divisions.

Even without the extra redundancy charges, Deutsche’s net income would have dropped by more than 40% to €231m in the second quarter, compared with the same period a year earlier. Further restructuring charges are expected to plague the bank’s earnings in the second half of the year and the lender is expected to report a full-year loss for 2019.

Here’s the full story from the Guardian’s Kalyeena Makortoff:

An update on the politics side: chancellor Philip Hammond has finally resigned from the government.

It was already well known that he would jump before he was pushed. More important, however, will be the tone of his comments in the next few days, after he rebelled against the government whip on an amendment to make it much harder for Boris Johnson to suspend parliament and stop MPs from blocking no deal.

He has so far said that his successor should choose wisely on spending pledges and cutting taxes, suggesting that Johnson could struggle with his domestic agenda as well.

US aircraft maker Boeing has reported a $2.9bn (£2.4bn) quarterly loss as it absorbed the cost of grounding its 737-Max planes following two deadly crashes.

Boeing had previously announced a $5bn charge related to the grounding, which was prompted by crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia that together killed 346 people in five months.

The net loss for the quarter ended 30 June was $2.9bn, compared with a profit of $2.2bn, a year earlier.

US stock market futures suggest shares will fall at the open, after the US justice department said it will investigate major technology firms for potential competition breaches.

The price of futures for the S&P 500 has fallen by 0.24%, while futures for the Nasdaq, which counts more tech firms among its members, lost 0.37% at the time of writing.

You can read the full report on the US investigation here:

Theresa May is currently carrying out/suffering through her final prime minister’s questions – after all, Johnson is still technically just a Conservative backbencher.

She will head to Downing Street after she has finished to deliver a final speech as prime minister, before going to Buckingham Palace to tender her resignation to the Queen.

Johnson will then go to Buckingham Palace to have an audience with the Queen, who will ask him to form a government, at about 3:30pm BST.

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Separately, an earlier post said that Deutsche Bank’s quarterly loss was the largest since the financial crisis. This was incorrect, and has been changed to reflect the fact that it was only the second-biggest in that time, after the third quarter of 2015. Please refresh your page to see the updated version.

Then again, markets are pricing in a 50% chance of a rate cut at this meeting, meaning it would not come as a surprise if Draghi does pull the trigger.

The ECB is not the only central bank looking at the global economy and seeing a need for monetary policy support: the US Federal Reserve is expected to cut interest rates for the first time since the financial crisis next week.

It adds up to a situation of when, not if, the ECB will cut for most analysts.

Today’s weak German PMI data has pushed the euro to a two-month low against the US dollar this morning.

The euro traded as low as $1.1125, the lowest since the last day of May, as the weakness added to the feeling that the doves at the European Central Bank (ECB) have the ascendancy, making rate cuts more likely.

Marchel Alexandrovich, senior European economist at US investment bank Jefferies, points out that the ECB has not changed interest rates without publishing new forecasts since September 2013, meaning Mario Draghi and co may hold fire until September. That would mean Draghi could cut rates at his penultimate meeting, before his term ends at the end of October.

Alexandrovich said:

The most likely scenario for Thursday is that the ECB changes its forward guidance but delays decisions on rate cuts, tiering and additional quantitative easing until its next meeting on 12 September, when it can make a more thorough assessment of its policy in light of the new macro forecasts.

London-based minicab firm Addison Lee has received interest for a takeover from Uber and Indian ride-hailing rival Ola, according to Sky News.

Uber and Ola are among “a handful” of parties in discussions with Addison Lee’s owner, the private equity firm Carlyle, about a possible deal.

Addison Lee has struggled with competition from the likes of Uber and other ride-hailing apps, but any talks on a deal are in the early stages, sources told Sky.

The latest UK Finance mortgage approvals data shows a small pick-up in new house purchases for June.

There were 42,653 mortgage approvals for house purchase from the main high street banks in June, a 0.6% month-on-month rise. After strong gains in March and April that pushed the year-on-year change to 6.9%.

Hansen Lu, a property economist at Capital Economics, a consultancy, said:

The strength of today’s lending numbers should be interpreted with care. While UK Finance has recorded an elevated level of mortgage lending over last few months, those figures cover only two-thirds of the mortgage market. Meanwhile, the Bank of England data, which covers all of the market, show only a very small rise over the same period to May – the latest available reading.

As a result, the elevated level of house purchase mortgage lending probably reflects a shift in market share, rather than a market-wide expansion of lending.

Lu does not expect a recovery in mortgage lending this year after three years of stagnant demand and continued Brexit uncertainty until October very likely.

(And apologies that I am a bit late to the release.)

The FTSE 100 has now slipped to a 1% loss for this morning, as London’s weighty mining contingent has fallen further.

Rio Tinto is down by 4%, while BHP and Anglo American are both down by more than 3%. Only Yorkshire chemicals company Croda has lost more, down by 4.1%.

The mid-cap FTSE 250 is up by 0.1%, despite the fall of Aston Martin, one of the larger constituents on the index. The carmaker is still down by 23%.

The FTSE 100 may have been weighed down by the success of the pound, which has gained by 0.35% against the US dollar, to $1.2480, and 0.45% against the euro, to €1.1204. Increases in the value of sterling tend to dent share prices for London’s multinationals, who earn much of their revenues in other currencies.

Lest we forget in the flurry of corporate and economic news, today is the first day of a new era for Britain: the premiership of Boris Johnson.

You can follow all of the cabinet reshuffle to and fro with Andrew Sparrow on the politics live blog here:

The early gossip is that Johnson will appoint Dominic Cummings as an adviser. Cummings was the mastermind of the leave campaign in the EU referendum (and was memorably played by Benedict Cumberbatch in a Channel 4 drama earlier this year).

Other rumblings suggest that Jeremy Hunt is refusing to be demoted from foreign secretary, one of the great offices of state. If both sides play hardball it could result in Johnson ejecting the man he beat yesterday in the race to the Conservative party leadership.

For business, all eyes are on the prospects for Brexit, with Johnson sticking to his threats of a no-deal Brexit on 31 October.

The Caledonian Sleeper’s relaunch in the spring had some real teething problems, and now they have another issue: a vote by staff to strike.

Staff backed strike action at the Scotland to London rail link over “appalling” working conditions and morale at an all-time low, the RMT union said. The union said poor staffing levels and insufficient training have contributed to a complete breakdown in industrial relations.

RMT said members had voted by more than 10 to one for both strike action and action short of a strike in a turnout of over 80%.

The maker of James Bond’s favourite car (in the films, at least) has been shaken this morning after a surprise update pointed to a steep drop in sales. Whether it can be stirred into action is another matter.

Aston Martin has committed “one of the worst things a newly-listed company can do in the first year of being on the stock market”, said Russ Mould, investment director at
investor platform AJ Bell: a revenue warning. Mould said:

Floating on the stock market can boost a company’s reputation and provide an opportunity for the public to buy into the story. However, it can also expose a company to criticism from investors who are watching every move like a hawk.

Its credibility could be shattered for some time as investors question if they can trust management to do what they said Aston Martin would do at the time of the initial public offering last October. The situation shows how vulnerable it is to a period of economic weakness.

Here’s the full story on Aston Martin’s struggles this morning.

The UK’s competition regulator has announced that it will push ahead with an investigation into the takeover by JD Sports of trainer retailer Footasylum.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has notified the companies that it has launched a full merger inquiry, after it earlier said it was considering whether it had grounds to investigate.

The deadline for the CMA to announce its decision whether to refer the merger for a more in-depth “Phase 2” investigation is 19 September.

European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi will have a case of jumpy doves in the latest meeting, says ING’s Bert Colijn.

All in all, the PMI paints a picture of an economy that is flirting more with the downside than with swift recovery. More ECB stimulus seems to be a done deal, but the timing remains an exciting question.

If the ECB has yet to decide whether it is already tomorrow or September when it will act, this PMI has given the doves on the governing council even more ammunition.

Even if the European services sector is still growing, the weakness of the German manufacturing sector (a big consumer of services) may eventually feed through.

The Eurozone PMI figures, which came out 15 minutes after the German data, tell much the same story of “significant” growth concerns, according to Bert Colijn, senior Eurozone economist for ING. He said:

Even though service sector activity remains strong for now, the question is how long that can be maintained when industrial production experiences a prolonged decline.

The poor PMI data come ahead of the European Central Bank’s latest monetary policy announcement tomorrow. The upshot is that the case for easing policy has been bolstered, say economists.

Jack Allen-Reynolds, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics, said:

It will reaffirm policymakers’ desire for policy easing, and we think that they will begin by changing their forward guidance on interest rates and QE tomorrow.

[German PMIs] suggest that the economy was still weak at the start of the third quarter, following what is likely to have been stagnation or a small contraction in the second quarter.

The weakness of the manufacturing sector – and the mighty car industry – has pushed Germany’s composite PMI, including the services sector, to a four-month low of 51.4.

Weakness in the automotive sector was a major driver of the poor manufacturing performance. Manufacturing order books fell at the fastest rate since April amid reports of lower export sales to China in particular.

Data provider IHS Markit said:

Confidence among manufacturers towards future output sank sharply in July, down to its lowest since late 2012 due in part to increased concerns towards the outlook for the car industry.

If you need a reminder of why Deutsche Bank is spending €3.4bn on cutting jobs, here it is: a share price graph showing the last decade.

No matter what a succession of chief executives have done, the fall from the heights before the financial crisis has been relentless.

Back on Deutsche Bank, shares are down by 5.2%.

The €3.1bn (£2.8bn) loss was driven by a larger-than-expected charge for restructuring, meaning it has already used up half of the money it set aside for the next three years.

Aston Martin’s struggles may be a sign of the broader difficulties faced by the automotive industry, according to analysts.

Nissan is reportedly looking to cut 10,000 jobs (more detail here), as it tries to turn its business around. That could have worrying implications for workers at its plant in Sunderland, which has already seen investment pulled in part because of Brexit.

Carmakers worldwide are battling on multiple fronts, with macroeconomic uncertainty from trade wars and weakening economies alongside the need to make massive investments in completely new battery-powered technologies.

A quick look at the European indices: shares are flat across most of Europe, but the UK is acting as a weight on any gains.

The FTSE 100 is now down by 0.2% thanks to declines of between 1% and 2% for the London-listed mining contingent, while French shares have risen by 0.1%.