London pre-open: Small retreat expected in early trade

21st May 2013 07:24

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open down seven points from yesterday's close of 6,756, having hit a 13-year high on Monday. US equities retreated Monday as investors sat tight ahead of the release of economic data and the Federal Reserve's minutes of its last policy meeting. The Fed will on Wednesday reveal the outcome of it last get-together while Chairman Ben Bernanke will testify on the outlook for the US economy to the Joint Economic Committee of Congress. On the cards today are the UK consumer price index and the producer price index, while over in Germany its producer price index revealed growth of 0.1% in April, compared to 0.4% in March. In today's company news, outsourcing giant Capita has been selected by o2 as their preferred bidder to form a 10-year strategic partnership for customer management services. The group also announced that following the deal it has now secured over £2.0bn of major new and extended contracts to date in 2013 and as such expects achieve greater than anticipated organic growth for the full year 2013, with current visibility of at least 8.0% organic revenue growth.Marks & Spencer's (M&S) annual profits declined as the retailer's struggling general merchandise division continued to drag on a rise in food sales. The UK company's underlying profit before tax for the year to March 30th came to £665.2m, a 5.8% fall from the previous year's £705.9m and in line with analysts' expectations. Group sales were broadly flat with a modest growth of 0.09% to £10bn, reflecting a 4.1% fall in like-for-like sales of general merchandise.Home emergency repairs group HomeServe reported a decline in full year profit, but said it is confident about plans for stable UK customer numbers as its International businesses continues to grow. Adjusted pre-tax profit fell to £105.0m for the year ended March 31st 2013 from £126.0m before. Revenue rose to £546.5m from £534.7m from the same time a year earlier.