London pre-open: Stocks set to bounce back

21st Jan 2011 07:35

London's leading shares look set to claw back a small proportion of yesterday's heavy losses, encouraged by the late rally by Wall Street yesterday. City traders expect the Footsie will open around 17 points up from last night's close. Weather conditions in Australia have improved enough to allow Rio Tinto to end the force majeure event that's disrupted supplies of aluminium from Boyne Smelters near Gladstone. The company's aluminium arm, Rio Tinto Alcan, says transport operations have now returned to normal.After a lull over the Christmas period Autonomy has started banging out the contract agreement announcements again, adding two more contract wins on Friday to the four announced earlier in the week. Verizon Communications and an unnamed US law firm have signed up to use the company's Intelligent Data Operating Layer software.Drugs giant AstraZeneca has replied to the complete response letter for Brilinta, its blood thinning drug, from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA).The FDA had requested additional analysis of the data from a study (the "PLATO" trial) of the effects of Brilinta (ticagrelor) on 18,600 patients in 43 countries compared with its main rival Plavix.Astra said it continues to hold the view that either dumb luck or an interaction between high dose aspirin and ticagrelor are viable explanations for the efficacy differences observed in a subset of US patients in the PLATO trial.The ball is now back in the FDA's court. If the FDA accepts Astra's explanation then the next stage is either a two-month or a six-month review cycle for Brilinta.Merchant bank Close Brothers remains on course for a 'satisfactory' outcome this year despite a pick-up in bad debts, though it had flagged this previously.Trophy handbag maker the Mulberry Group put in a strong trading performance over Christmas and now expects full year results to be ahead of expectations.