London pre-open: FTSE to open higher

1st Feb 2013 07:27

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 16 points from yesterday's close of 6,277, having enjoyed its best January since 1989, despite suffering its worst day of 2013 on Thursday.US markets ended the day lower on Thursday, reducing the overall gains seen in January, after initial jobless claims came in higher than had been expected. The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 368,000 for the week ending January 26th, according to survey data from the Department of Labour. The latest Chicago NAPM purchasing managers index (PMI) did beat forecasts by a comfortable margin.The UK manufacturing PMI for January is released at 09:28 (Consensus: 51.0). Eurozone manufacturing PMI and inflation data are also slated for publication this morning.As expected the US Senate last night voted to postpone the 'debt ceiling' until May 19th. In UK company news, productivity-enhancing instrumentation company Spectris has completed the sale of its Fusion UV business to Heraeus Holding GmbH for a total cash consideration of 172m dollars, the post-tax proceeds of which will be used to pay down debt. The sale is expected to be somewhat dilutive to earnings per share in 2013 and the impact on earnings per share is expected to be approximately five pence.Sweeteners and food products group Tate & Lyle said that third-quarter profits, while lower than they were last year, were in line with its expectations. The company said that adjusted profit before tax was down year-on-year in the three months to December 31st due to the step change in fixed costs associated with its "business transformation initiatives", which include the restart of the McIntosh facility and the development of the Commerical and Food Innovation Centre in Chicago.Defence firm QinetiQ said Friday that alongside the UK Ministry of Defence (MOD), it has successfully completed the regular five-yearly review of the existing 25-year long term partnering agreement (LTPA) and together agreed terms for the provision of test and evaluation and training support services through to March 2018. As such, the MOD will pay £998m across the third five-year term of the contract, which is valued at £5.6bn over the 25-year period. Analysts at Citi have downgraded their view on HSBC to neutral from buy.