London pre-open: FTSE to slide after heavy declines in Asia and US overnight

8th Oct 2014 07:43

Tracking the losses seen in both Asia and the States overnight, the FTSE will open Wednesday's session in the red, as markets digest the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) downgrade for global growth and notably poor data from Germany.City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open around 27 points lower than Tuesday's close of 6,495.58."It may have been a bad couple of weeks for the stock markets but it's clearly not over yet, as another sell-off yesterday brought about the heaviest fall in more than two month in the US," said Alpari UK market analyst Craig Erlam."This carried into Asia overnight as Chinese investors returned from their long weekend to see almost three quarters of a percent wiped off the Hang Seng and it now looks to continue into the European session again, with futures currently pointing to a much lower open."The economic calendar for the mid-week session is rather sparse, with the focus firmly on the release of the minutes of the most recent Fed policy meeting, which Erlam predicts could "could cause quite a stir in the markets".Wednesday will also see the unofficial opening of the earnings season in the US, kicked off in traditional style by Alcoa.In company news, bus and train operator Firstgroup has failed to keep its Scotrail franchise but said first half trading was in line with management's expectations and it was continuing to make progress with an overhaul of its bus business. It added that a slow economic recovery for its core Greyhound customers, and in some local UK Bus markets, was balanced by contract pricing and cost cuts in First Student.Pub operator and brewing group Marston's reported a slight slowdown in its fourth quarter but said it has made "steady progress" over the year, as it continues to dispose of pubs and convert others to franchise.Mike Ashley, the founder and executive chairman of Sports Direct, has called for the removal of two members of the board of Rangers Football Club, where he holds 5% of the shares. In a statement put out by Rangers on Wednesday, Ashley called for the removal of chief executive Graham Wallace and fellow executive Philip Nash as directors of the company.