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The German sportswear brand Adidas is planning to buy back up to €3bn ($3.72bn) of its shares over the next three years.

That represents nearly 9% of its share capital, the firm said.

It will finance the buyback mostly with current net cash and through its expected strong cash flow in coming years the firm said.

Adidas is reporting fourth-quarter results on Wednesday and it's expected to show a pick-up in profits.

It undertook a previous €1.5bn shareback in 2014, when the company was trying to placate angry investors after a string of profit warnings.

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John McEntee was fired amid an inquiry over alleged financial crimes, reports say.

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The US could lose an estimated 18 jobs for every one gained as a result of planned steel and aluminium tariffs.

The figure comes from Trade Partnership Worldwide, a Washington think tank, which examined the potential cost of retaliation on industries such as agriculture.

Including retaliation, the firm forecasts that the tariffs could lead to a net loss of 470,000 jobs.

Previously, the firm estimated that the tariffs could lead to a net loss of about 146,000 jobs in the US.

It turns out people like focusing on the small change.

A few more views for good measure.

Virgin's indefatigable appetite for publicity has resulted in this tweet in response to the newly-issued railcards for 26-30 year olds - and news of the trouble people had trying to get one..

Predictably there are differing views on the future of the 1p and 2p coin.

Not so many voicing regret for the loss of the £50 note.

Here's a snapshot.

There was plenty of news for US investors to digest.

It didn't all go down well. In particular news of Rex Tillerson's departure as Secretary of State and his replacement with Mike Pompeo whose views are closer to President Trump's on matters such as the Iran nuclear deal.

At the end of the trading day in the US the Dow Jones Index was 0.68% or 172 points lower at 25,006.68.

The broader S&P 500 fell 0.64% or 17 points to 2,765.31.

The Nasdaq ended the day 1.02% down or 77 points lower at 7,511.01.

The dollar fell against most currencies but gained marginally against the yen, rising 0.1% to 106.51.

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Vice Media, where executives last year apologised for creating a "boys club" culture, will be led by a woman.

Vice co-founder Shane Smith is stepping down as chief executive. He will be replaced by Nancy Dubuc, who most recently led A&E Networks.

Mr Smith will remain with the company as executive chairman.

Vice last year was the subject of a New York Times investigation about sexual harassment. The company has also missed, external key financial targets.

The justification for paying actors different amounts largely boils down to how high profile the actor is and Matt Smith's turn as the eleventh Doctor Who made him a bit of a box office draw.

But in part it's also down to how much they've earned on previous projects. It's something Vanity Fair looked into recently, external.

Now though there's a new law in California banning employers from asking potential employees about their previous levels of pay in an effort to close the gender-wage gap.

Tune in to see how that resolves.

As we wait to see what measures the UK government opts for in response to the poisoning in Salisbury last weekend, critics of Russia are pushing for them to take a tough stance.

Foremost among them is American financier Bill Browder, who ran a business in Russia for ten years but fell foul of the authorities.

He's been speaking to BBC World Service.

Rex Tillerson's replacement as Secretary of State is being blamed for a slide in the dollar today.

The dollar's fallen 0.4 cents against the euro- a fall of 0.51%. One dollar buys 0.8065 euros.

It fell a similar amount against sterling to £0.7156.

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Claire Foy was paid an estimated, external $40,000 per episode for playing Queen Elizabeth. But Matt Smith was paid more as Prince Philip. The Crown isn't a series produced on a shoestring budget.

It had a budget of $7m per episode, according to Vanity Fair.

We don't know how much of a pay rise "the Queen" will see, now they've been called out over the discrepancy.

But it won't be Foy who benefits.

Because the upcoming third series jumps forward in time to the 1970s they're casting a slightly older actor to play the Queen: Olivia Coleman.

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A Tigger moment you might have missed from the OBR forecast, external.

Explaining why there might be increases in productivity over the next five years, it cites the expected rise in interest rates.

Why do higher interest rates boost productivity?

Because they will force the less productive firms, which the OBR calls "zombie firms", out of business.

That's cheerful isn't it?

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It turns out the Queen could do with a pay rise.

Well, the actress who plays the Queen in Netflix's popular series The Crown at any rate.

Variety Magazine has just discovered that Claire Foy was paid less than her co-star Matt Smith (playing Prince Philip).

“The producers acknowledged that [Smith] did make more due to his Doctor Who fame, but that they would rectify that for the future,”Variety reported, external.

“Going forward, no one gets paid more than the Queen,” creative director Suzanne Mackie said.

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President Trump has told reporters Larry Kudlow has "a very good chance" at becoming the next head of his National Economic Council, the position just vacated by Gary Cohn.

Mr Kudlow - a contributor on the CNBC business channel - has acted as an informal adviser to Mr Trump during the election campaign.

He is a more orthodox Republican than the president; like Cohn he opposed recent steel and aluminium tariffs.

But Mr Trump says he can overlook this.

"Larry has been a friend of mine for a long time," he told reporters on Tuesday. "He backed me very early in the campaign; I think the earliest."

Can this be right?

The government's paper which is looking at whether to scrap 1p and 2p coins says: "Surveys suggest that six in ten 1p and 2p coins are used in a transaction once before they leave the cash cycle.

"They are either saved, or in 8 per cent of cases are thrown away."

Probably not even into the recycling.

And then you've got to keep minting more to replace them.

Image source, Greencore

One big loser on Tuesday was Greencore, the Irish food-to-go supplier.

It flagged up a weak performance in the US and said profits would be lower than expected.

Its shares fell 30%.

The FTSE 100 share index fell 1.05% on Tuesday, that's a fall of 76 points, to 7,138.78.

The pound was up 0.008 pence or 0.55% against he dollar at $1.3982.

And against the euro it was almost unchanged at €1.1277,

The pound's gain against the dollar was as much to do with news of Rex Tillerson's departure from the White House as the Spring Statement analysts said.

A Co-op spokesperson says the depot is now fully operational "and we’re working hard to get products into stores as quickly as possible.”​