London pre-open: FTSE to nudge higher ahead of quiet session

13th Dec 2013 07:26

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open three points higher than yesterday's close of 6,445.25, ticking marginally higher after a week of declines. It looks set to be a quiet session on both the company and macro fronts, as investors digest the news out from the US last night that the House in Washington had passed the budget deal by a wide margin to avoid a government shutdown next month and ease spending cuts over the next two years.As speculation continues to ramp up regarding the future of the Fed's quantitative easing programme, data released Thursday showed that jobless claims surged to their highest level in two months, while retail sales growth picked up in November."If markets were looking for additional clues as to what the Fed might do next week then today's US data didn't really tilt the scales either way coming in as it did somewhat mixed," said Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets.Jobless claims rose to 368,000 in the week ended December 7th from a revised 300,000 the week before. Analysts had expected a much smaller increase to 320,000.However, analysts warned about reading too much into the numbers given that the Labor Department said volatile seasonal factors - related to the timing of Thanksgiving - affected the data. Analyst Cooper Howes from Barclays said: "We would suggest smoothing through the volatility and looking at the four-week moving average, which rose 6,000 to 329,000."Back on this side of the Pond, fund manager Old Mutual this morning announced the its Group Finance Director, Philip Broadley, is planning to leave the company in 2014. He has agreed to stay on in the role until a successor has been appointed and responsibilities sufficiently transitioned over to the new director, expected sometime after the May annual general meeting. RSA Insurance said its Irish reserves will need to be strengthened by £130m following a review of the business. The company will inject £135m of capital into RSA Insurance Ireland to ensure that the solvency ratio of RSA Insurance Ireland is maintained above 200%.AstraZeneca, alongside Bristol-Myers Squibb, has revealed that the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC) voted 13-1 that the benefits of dapagliflozin use outweigh identified risks and support marketing of its dapagliflozin drug as an adjunct to diet and exercise to improve glycaemic control in adults with type-2 diabetes mellitus. The FDA will take into account the EMDAC's advice when reviewing the application for an investigational agent, it explained. NR