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More than 2,000 Morrisons staff are to sue the supermarket for damages after the financial details of employees were posted online by a disgruntled auditor. Andrew Skelton was jailed for eight years in July after being found guilty of leaking personal data relating to almost 100,000 of the supermarket's staff, following a trial at Bradford Crown Court. 

Lawyer Nick McAleenan, who is representing the Morrisons staff taking legal action, says the company failed to prevent the data leak, which exposed its employees to "the very real risk of identity theft and potential loss".

He adds: "They are worried about the possibility of money being taken from their bank accounts and - in the case of younger clients - negative consequences for their credit rating."

Our business editor tweets:

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Hit films including Minions and Jurassic World have sent revenue at NBCUniversal up 21% to $7.15bn (£4.6bn). Revenue at its parent company, Comcast, rose 11% to $18.6bn for the third quarter, though profit slipped 22% to $2bn on higher tax charges.

MEPs have voted against rules intended to safeguard "net neutrality" in the EU. A series of amendments to a regulation on how internet traffic is managed in Europe were all rejected. Proponents of net neutrality, who want web traffic be treated equally by networks, have criticised the move. 

The FTSE 100 has lost ground for a second consecutive day ahead of the two-day Federal Reserve meeting starting today. Brenda Kelly, head analyst at London Capital Markets, says: "There does seem to be a certain amount of pause for breath ahead of the [Fed] meeting this week. I think markets are ... waiting for that confirmation that we'll have loose monetary policy for longer." 

The index is down almost 28 points, or 0.4%, at 6,389, with mining companies among the biggest fallers. Anglo American is down 3.9%, while Shire is the biggest riser, adding 5.3%. 

Business presenter Ben Thompson tweets:

Sterling is down about 0.2% following today's GDP figures and markets are not pricing in an interest rate rise until the end of 2016 or even 2017. Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi currency economist Lee Hardman said: "The market has pushed the first rate hike way out into the future so I don't think today's GDP figures are going to have much impact in terms of that timing. The market is already pricing in a very dovish profile for Bank of England policy, so you could argue a lot of bad news is in [sterling's] price already." 

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As well as Switzerland's Novartis, two big US pharmaceutical companies have numbers out today. Pfizer reported much better-than-expected profit for the third quarter of $2.1bn (£1.36bn), mainly helped by demand for its flu vaccine and breast cancer drug Ibrance. Revenue fell 2% to $12.1bn, but that was better than analysts' estimate of $11.56bn. 

Merck also had better-than-expected quarterly profit as demand for its diabetes and cancer drugs increased. It doubled net profit to $1.83bn as sales of its diabetes drug, Januvia, rose 9.5% to $1.58bn - though total revenue fell 5% to $10bn. 

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The near annual shutdown of the US government has become a usual feature of the Obama administration around this time of year appears to have been averted with the announcement of a compromise deal.

If passed by both houses of Congress, the two-year deal will increase spending by $80bn (£52.1bn). It will also be the last budget deal reached by President Obama, lasting until March 2017.

The government needs to raise its borrowing limit by 3 November or risk default. The US Treasury Department had already postponed two bond sales as it waited for an agreement.

Speaking of cars, business correspondent (and car nut) Theo Leggett has been for a spin in a Tesla for a forthcoming programme about electric vehicles.

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Strong sales of the new F-150 pickup truck in North America have driven profits at Ford sharply higher. The car maker posted a pretax profit of $2.7bn (£1.75bn) for the third quarter on sales $3.2bn higher at $38.1bn. 

Despite record profits for North America, Ford posted a $340m loss for the other regions - although there was less red ink in Europe and South America.

The company's global market share was 7.6%, up from 7.3% for the same period last year.

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Nestle has started making Maggi noodles in India once more after a government ban was overturned, in a major step towards getting the popular brand back on shop shelves. India's food safety watchdog banned the noodles in June, saying lead levels exceeded safe limits. 

However, the Bombay high court overturned the ruling two months later, calling it "arbitrary" and ordered fresh tests. Earlier this month Nestle said the laboratory tests had found that Maggi noodles were safe to eat. 

Sales at Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba rose by a better than expected 32% to $3.49bn in the third quarter despite slowing growth in the world's second-largest economy.

Perhaps investors who like taking a bit of a punt are doing so on TalkTalk today:

Simon French, chief economist at Panmure Gordon, tweets:

Image source, ONS

The ONS says UK GDP is now 6.4% higher than before the 2008 financial crisis kicked in and plunged the country into recession. But rather depressingly - as you can see from the above graph -  three out of the four main industry sectors still haven't got back to the levels of growth there were experiencing seven, yes, seven years ago!  The UK is still hugely reliant on its services sector. And the biggest sub-sector within that industry? Still financial services (as you can see from the graph below).

Image source, ONS

The reaction of sterling shows that markets have not taken the GDP figures too well. The pound is now 0.16% lower against the US dollar at $1.532. It's also 0.1% lower against the euro at €1.387. Not huge falls, but it's clear the third quarter GDP figures have caused some disappointment. Also worth noting that sterling is lower against all but a few currencies. The fall suggests that markets think an interest rate rise before next June or July is less likely.

Our economics editor tweets:

Image source, ONS

Once again it was left to the dominant service sector  - it accounts for 78.6% of the economy - to shelter the UK from a bigger slowdown in growth. Services expanded by 0.7% in the third quarter, following growth of 0.6% in the previous three months.