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London pre-open: Stocks seen higher as US government shutdown ends
London stocks were set for a firmer open on Tuesday, taking their cue from a record close on Wall Street after the Senate agreed a temporary deal that has ended the government shutdown.
The FTSE 100 was expected to open 21 points higher at 7,736.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "US markets took another leg higher yesterday in the wake of the announcement that the US government shutdown that started at the weekend wouldn't be lasting very long, which in turn means that any potential negative effect on the US economy is likely to be minimal at worst.
"The announcement that US senators had arrived at a stop gap deal to fund the government until February 8th saw US markets, which had been trading slightly negative to flat, push up further to close at another set of record highs.
"A set of positive upgrades for global growth from the IMF had already set the scene for a positive day before that in any case, as they cited the impact of the recent tax cut legislation in pushing up their estimates for the next two years by 0.2%, to 3.9%."
On the data front, public sector net borrowing figures for December are at 0930 GMT, while the CBI industrial trends survey is at 1100 GMT.
In corporate news, Computacenter said it plans to return up to £100m to shareholders through a tender offer.
The offer, which is up to 6.97% of the company, will be based on the middle market closing price on 22 January. Shareholders can tender their shares for sale within a range of 1170p-1260p, or a premium of 7.69%.
Easyjet reported a 14.4% increase in revenue for the first quarter of its financial year and said it had cut costs by 1.6%.
The £1.14bn of sales in the quarter ended 31 December came from an 8% increase in passengers to 18.8m as capacity grew 5.5% to 20.4m seats and load factor by 2.1 percentage points to 92.1%.
N Brown, the clothes retailer for plus-size and plus-age shoppers, increased revenue 3.2% in the third quarter of its financial year, with growth across the business.
Product revenue was up 2.7%, with sales from its 'power brands' Simply Be, JD Williams and Jacamo up 7.3%, while online revenue rose 9% and sales from the new market of the USA surging 22%.
The competition regulator dealt a blow to 21st Century Fox and its planned takeover of Sky on Tuesday, as the Competition and Markets Authority said it has provisionally found that Fox taking full control of Sky "is not in the public interest" due to media plurality concerns.
Its investigation did provisionally conclude, however, that overall Fox had a "genuine commitment" to broadcasting standards in the UK.
"The media plurality concerns identified mean that, overall, the CMA provisionally concludes that the proposed transaction is not in the public interest," the authority said in its statement.