turning to business news -- stephen carroll joins me for that. we are going to start in italy, where concerns over the stability of its banks are rising. stephen: plunging to an all-time low in trading earlier, after the european central bank told him to reduce the amount of bag loans -- a bad loans. at the end of 2015, there were almost 47 billion euros of gross nonperforming loans. the ecb wants the figure cut to 8 billion by the end of next year. this will come as italy's prime minister is eject -- injecting billions of euros into the country's troubled banks against eu rules. germany strongly opposed any such moves. italian banks were hard hit by the turmoil following the brexit vote because of the level of their bad debt. cyril: how is that affecting the markets? stephen: as you might imagine, it is depressing the italian market today. the ftse in milan is down about 1%. across theing european markets, we had started the day in the green, but things have turned into the red as the day has gone on. in london, gold miners are doing well as inve

i'm joined by stephen carroll. we start with bad is from apple. which might be good news. >> sales of apple's flagship product the iphone down 15% in the three months -- the second quarter we've seen sales of the iphone fall. profits fell by more than a quarter. but shares in apple actually rose after the results. the company said it had passed a low point for the iphone. [applause] >> apple's flagship device is not raising passions as it once did. 40.4 million iphones were sold dutch 15% fewer than one year ago and half of the sales recorded after the immensely successful launch of the iphone 6. sales in china took the hardest hit. with the iphone accounting for the majority of apple's income, overall profit for this quarter is down 27%. for the company's chief financial officer, the figures are not all doom and gloom. >> customer demand for our products with stronger than expected -- >> iphone sales fell less this quarter, after a low point in the cycle. revenues from the ipad also group for the first time in many quarters, thanks to the ipad pr

stephen carroll has joined us on set. the markets back in turmoil today come the latest fallout from the brexit vote. sterling has once again weekend. -- weakened. .> the lowest level in 31 years the pound hitting a low of under $1.28. the last time sterling was at that level against the u.s. currency was in june of 1985 fo. it has been fairly stable since then, but turning again into negative territory in the past couple of hours. it has moved off that low point against the dollar, still down around .5% today. ae latest slump provoked by growing crisis in the commercial the fallingtor -- sterling affecting stock markets there as well. in london, the firms controlling those properties all trading down, banks back in the red today over the fears of bad debt and italian lenders. we've been warned of more turmoil to come. sterling dropping even further, $1.20. clarity,we see more which we are not likely to see until the prime minister is elected in september, it is fairly likely the british pound continues to suffer. andt mo

and it is time now for business news and i am joined by stephen carroll. nintendoarting with who has been struck by pokemon fever. --the japanese came in gaming company saw its shares soar with new mobile game, and it quickly shot to the top of the download charts. the gameme sees players use ther phones to catch pokemon in real-life locations. an important milestone for the japanese firm, which has traditionally been reluctant to transfer its popular games onto mobile. they have invested more money into nintendo and the jump added some $7 billion to the company's value in just two days. nintendo shares finishing the day up 25% at the end of the day, the biggest one-day gain since 1983. that rise helpsps shares. european shares following that trend in trading. banks and mining firms leading the gains in europe. homebuilders also seeing recovery followed by post brexit jitters. on that story, aberdeen assets frozen for two more days. one bank doing particularly well .s the italian lender its shares have been hammered over fears about the lenders level of de

stephen carroll is here. we started with volkswagen who seems to be staging a comeback. >> it might sound hard to believe but the german carmakers are on track to regain position as the world's number one carmaker. volkswagen beat toyota in the first six months of the year, selling 5.1 million cars worldwide, 100,000 more than its rival despite the continuing legal battles over the emissions cheating scandal which cost them 18 billion euros. the company reporting six months of this year. claire: results from facebook which has continued to grow. now 1.7 billion reg other of the world's biggest social network. is almost as many people as were alive 100 years ago. soared.and revenues catherine: doubling quarterly profits to $2 billion, it is a milestone that took google three and a half years. it has taken facebook six months. the search comes from another 222 million active users in the last year. twitter added 9 million users in the past year and is warning of a slowdown. facebook founder and ceo mark zuckerb

business news now -- stephen carroll is here. starting in the u.k., the bank of england has announced plans to boost the economy in the wake of the brexit vote. stephen: britain's central bank is set to cut the amount of safe assets lenders hold in reserve. it will help boost lending to households and businesses in britain by 150 billion pounds. 180 billion euros. governor mark carney described the u.k.'s stability is challenging. he says the risks facing the country after brexit have never come clear. its meetingney: at in march, the sbc judge -- the fpc judged there was a risk to financial stability. some of the risks have begun to crystallize, given the core resililience of the banks. it is important to ensure there is no question about the availability of credit. those comments came as a new survey showed how businesses are reacting to the brexit vote. it shows a portion of companies that are pessimistic about the future almost doubled in the week following the referendum. >> it is the first business survey held in britain aft

claire: time for business news with stephen carroll. bp has seen another drop in profits. 45% until the end of june for three months, compared to last year. they are well below what was forecast for the firm. this coming just two weeks after bp declared a final bill from horizon deepwater explosion. a stronger outlook for the company has been outlined after six years of cost-cutting. ap has been suffering from the --mp in oil prices over the bp has been suffering from the slump in oil prices over the past years. monday afterd on the figures from the united states reignited fears of oversupply in the market. you can see prices are still far above those lows of under $30 a barrel that we saw back in january of this year. claire: what is happening on the stock markets? stephen: we are seeing oil companies feeling the pinch on the back of falling oil prices, and bp down 2% a short time ago. weouple of minutes ago -- are seeing small gains in london, paris, and frankfurt, a reasonably quiet day on the markets. claire: air frarance is set to