London pre-open: Early strength predicted

13th May 2010 07:36

Triple-digit gains on Wall Street last night and a rally in Asia is just what the doctor ordered and should be enough to get the leading index back trading at levels not seen for over a week.City forecasters reckon the FTSE 100 will open about 46 points higher, near the 5,430 mark. It's not been that high since 4 May.Global markets appear more optimistic about Europe's ability to sort out the region's debt problems and the receding threat of a crisis spreading to the global economy. Spain is the latest to announce austerity measures.There's also lots of domestic company news to digest.Supermarket Sainsbury's posted a rise in sales and profits in the year to March 20 and said it was confident of further progress despite expectations of a challenging consumer spending environment. Underlying pre-tax profit of £610m was slightly ahead of expectations and up from £519m a year ago. Sales rose to £21.4bn from £20.4bn and grew 4.3% on a like-for-like basis excluding fuel.Telecoms giant BT returned to the black in the last quarter and the full year and reported a 6% rise in the dividend. Pre-tax profit hit £1.01bn in the year to 31 March versus a loss of £244m before. In the final quarter, pre-tax profit came to £251m compared with a loss of £1.31bn previously. FY revenue fell slightly to £20.91bn. For 2010/11, revenue is seen at around £20bn and operating cost savings of around £900m.Chiefs at ENRC are pleased with the Kazak miner's progress during the first quarter and say the recovery in demand, especially in China, continue to give it confidence for 2010. Revenue for the three months to 31 March "increased significantly" on the year before, reflecting higher production and sales volumes in the ferroalloys and iron ore divisions and the addition of copper and cobalt sales. Travel group Thomas Cookposted narrower losses in the six months to the end of March after continuing to cut capacity to cope with tough economic conditions and said that the impact of the volcano cloud disruption in April would be about £70m. Pre-tax losses totalled £252.2, less than the £309m shortfall seen in the same period the previous year. Revenues fell to £3.3bn from £3.48bn due to what the company described as 'planned capacity reductions in out winter 09/10 mainstream travel programme.'Engineering and project management company AMEC performed in line with expectations in the first four months of the year and said it is seeing some improvement in customer spending. The group said it remains on track to deliver its 8.5 per cent EBITA margin target in 2010. Camping and short break specialist Holidaybreak said half year losses narrowed and it expects full year results to be in line with company forecasts. Headline loss before tax narrowed to £17.7m for the six months ended 31 March from £18.1m the same time a year before. Revenue fell to £150.2m from £153.2m.