Brent Crude is down yet another 3% to just shy of $46 a barrel as the selling pressure on futures appears relentless. A new six year low.

Tesco is currently up 13% or 24p to 206p as new Chief Executive, Dave Lewis, also known as drastic Dave during his time at his previous role at Unilever, took some drastic steps to put the retailer back on course.

There has been plenty of focus on the plunging oil price this year, with Brent Crude currently trading at $60 a barrel, but the 50% fall in the price of iron ore to $67 a tonne, the lowest level for 5 years, shouldn’t be forgotten.

Today Afren’s shares are trading at 55p compared with the 35p level last week, a rise of up to 16% on the day, as the company announces this morning that it has received a highly preliminary approach from SEPLAT Petroleum Development Company plc regarding a possible combination with Afren.

The infamous US share pundit Jim Cramer, the host of CNBC’s Mad Money, has come in for some stick from activist investor Cannell Capital which owns close to 9% of the TheStreet, a company that Cramer co-founded in 1999. He still owns a 10% stake in the company.

There was the surprising news today that BT Group are in talks to potentially acquire the O2 or EE business of Spanish company Telefonica.

With the price of gold dropping heavily in recent weeks and currently trading at $1147, investors in sub-Saharan African focused and LSE/Nasdaq gold miner Randgold Resources Limited were relieved to see the company’s third quarter results and drove the shares up 8% on the news to £40.70.

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.