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London pre-open: Stocks to tick higher after Wall Street rally
London stocks were set to tick just a touch higher at the open on Thursday following a positive finish on Wall Street thanks to a solid performance from technology giant Apple.
The FTSE 100 was expected to open three points higher at 7,728.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "While European markets had a disappointing day yesterday it turned out that the late evaporation of those strong early gains in US markets on Tuesday, turned out to be a one day wonder, as sentiment got turned on its head with a rally of over 300 points on the Dow, with most of the gains helped by an afternoon announcement from Apple about its future investment plans in the US.
"The company said that as a result of the recent changes in US tax laws that it would look to expand its operations in the US by creating around 20,000 new jobs, while also repatriating a significant amount of the US dollar it currently holds overseas over the next few years. The estimated sums are expected to be in the hundreds of billions of US dollars, while the company also announced it would be paying a one-off tax bill of $38bn.
"Not surprisingly tech stocks also rallied sharply on an expectation that we could see similar moves by other US companies who have large overseas cash piles, with the S&P500 also making a record close above 2,800."
In corporate news, mining giant BHP said it was looking at offloading its US shale oil business either a trade sale, demerger or public offering.
In a quarterly update the company reported a 20% rise in copper production to 429,000 tonnes, iron ore output rose 3% to 62m tonnes, 6% per cent to 48m barrels.
Associated British Foods reported a 3% increase in revenues in recent weeks, as strong growth from its Primark clothing retail arm helped offset a big decline in sugar.
For the first 16 weeks of its financial year to 6 January saw Primark increase sales 9% or 7% at constant currencies, while sugar revenues fell 12%.
Information services giant Experian reported an 8% improvement in revenue for the three months to 31 December in a trading update on Thursday.
The company said its revenue growth at constant currencies was 6%, while organic revenue growth was 5%. Looking at its business units, revenue growth for its business-to-business segments was 8%, while it fell 4% in consumer services.