Caroline Hepker

Novo Nordisk CEO Mike Dusser speaking there, as the company also announced that it will start a new share buyback worth as much as $2.4 billion.

Meanwhile, Santander has announced a €5 billion share buyback this morning after confirming it has agreed to buy Webster Financial for €12 billion.

The deal will give Santander a major presence in the northeast of America.

It is one of the largest ever US transactions by a European lender.

Spain's biggest lender reported better than expected fourth quarter net income coming in at €3.76 billion.

Now, the European Union is preparing to pitch a critical minerals partnership to the United States to curb the influence of China.

Bloomberg understands that the Memorandum of Understanding will look at several ways to cut dependency through joint projects and export restrictions.

Bloomberg's Freddie Fulston has more.

And those are our top stories for you this morning.

So, we have a sell-off in tech and software-related businesses in the US and across Asia.

In terms of stock futures for the European market open, it looks a little bit positive.

We're up by about a tenth of 1%.

But what's the

response going to be for those software-related businesses?

We'll get into that in a moment.

In terms of the FX markets, the dollar is flat.

The Japanese yen weakening 0.4% ahead of election results.

Brent crude futures are up by 0.7%, $67.78.

So, more tensions between the US and Iran.

Gold rebounding 2.4%.