Thursday preview: UK consumer credit, B&M European Value Retail in focus

Investors' focus on Thursday was expected to shift back towards the UK.

At 0700 BST, the Office for National Statistics would release net consumer credit and mortgage approval figures for May.

They would be followed by the results of the European Commission's surveys of economic and industrial confidence for June at 1000 BST.

Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, was also due to take to the podium again, this time in Spain, at 030 BST.

As ever, the latest weekly unemployment claims figures in the States held the potential to move financial market one way or the other.

On the corporate side of things, furniture retailer B&M European Value Retail was set to update investors on its trading during the first quarter.

Analysts at ShoreCap believed that the retailer was likely to have benefitted from improved inventory management, from clients choosing affordable options and recent high temperatures.

Nonetheless, although they had penciled in a 6% rise in full-year earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, they judged that the company needed to provide more "specific guidance".

Furthermore, in a research report published just the day before they had kept their recommendation at 'hold', telling clients that the shares looked "fully valued".