2) Firms may still miss out on insurance payouts despite court ruling: Hundreds of thousands of firms will be left without Covid business interruption payouts or face further disputes despite the Financial Conduct Authority’s victory over insurers in a landmark Supreme Court case.

3) Ruling due in Heathrow’s dispute with watchdog over landing fees: A row between Heathrow and Britain’s aviation regulator is set to reignite this week over the airport’s demand to hike charges levied on airlines and passengers by £1.7bn.

4) Businesses want to see the road map out of lockdown: The CBI wants to work with ministers to identify which parts of the economy should be prioritised when the country emerges from lockdown.

5) Facebook ‘can’t regulate itself out of the mess it has made’: Facebook cannot be trusted to regulate itself and instead should face “independent oversight”, the former chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport committee has said.

What happened overnight 

Asian shares rallied on Monday and U.S. stock futures recouped early losses as newly empowered retail investors turned their attention to precious metals, promising a respite to some hard-hit hedge funds.

MSCI’s broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan climbed 1.4% after four straight sessions of losses.

Japan’s Nikkei added 1.2pc, after shedding almost 2pc on Friday, while Chinese blue chips gained 0.5pc as the country’s central bank injected more cash into money markets.

Futures for the S&P 500 edged up 0.3pc, having been down as much as 1% in early action, while NASDAQ futures firmed 0.1pc. EUROSTOXX 50 futures added 0.6pc and FTSE futures 0.2pc.

Dealers noted a shift in the headline-grabbing battle between retail investors and Wall Street that led hedge funds last week to trade the most stock in a decade amid wild swings in GameStop Corp.

Talk now was that silver was the new target for the retail crowd, as the metal jumped 6% to a six-month high, possibly limiting the need for distressed selling by stock funds.

Coming up today

Corporate: Hargreaves Lansdown (interim results)

Economics: Mortgage approvals, consumer credit (UK); final manufacturing PMIs (UK, Japan, China, eurozone, US)