London pre-open: FTSE to regain some of yesterday's losses

5th Apr 2012 07:31

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 20 points from yesterday's close of 5,704, as investors pare yesterday's huge losses which saw every single stock on the FTSE 100 become a faller by the end of the day. Investors are now looking to US jobless data for guidance, with unemployment claims expected to fall by 4,000. Budget airline easyJet carried more passengers on fuller planes last month, compared to the same period a year ago. The group reported 4,629,241 paid seats in March 2012, up 4.4% on the 4,435,624 registered in the same month of 2011. This took the 12-month rolling number up 8.9% to 55,793,372. Meanwhile, the load factor - a measure of how full the planes are - improved by 1.9 percentage points from 86.9% to 88.8%.Russia-focused mining firm Polymetal saw its proved and probable gold equivalent reserves fall by a tenth during 2011, as a result of reserve depletion. As of January 1st 2012, gold equivalent ore reserves stood at 14.3Moz, down 10% on the 15.9Moz reported on the same date in 2011. The firm assures that the average resources grade remains high at 3.9 g/t of gold equivalent. Meanwhile, gold reserves fell by 8%, silver reserves dropped by 10% and copper reserves were down 25%.Halfords, the retailer focused on the needs of car and bike owners, has seen the rate of decline in its like-for-like (LFL) sales ease off in 2012.LFL revenue in the UK and the Republic of Ireland was down 2.3% in the 13 weeks to March 30th compared to the corresponding period of 2011, whereas for the year to the end of March, LFL sales were down 2.7%.