Centrica buys REstore in £62m deal, Smith & Nephew reports flat Q3 growth

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 13 points higher on Friday, having closed up 0.9% at 7,555.32 on Thursday.

Stocks to watch

Centrica said it has bought European demand response aggregator REstore, for €70m (£62m) in cash. Headquartered in Antwerp, Belgium, REstore manages 1.7GW of peak load from a portfolio of industrial and commercial customers across Belgium, the UK, France and Germany.

Smith & Nephew said its full year profits to be at the lower end of its guided range after a third quarter where growth was flat outside US and emerging markets but its artificial hips business returned to growth. Revenue grew 3% to $1.15bn in the three months to 30 September, leading management to expect underlying revenue growth for the full year to be at the lower end of the 3-4% guided range, with profit margins to be at the lower end of the guided 20-70 basis points range.

TP ICAP updated the market on its trading for the third quarter on Friday, reporting revenue in the three months to 30 September of £420m - up 3% on the pro forma revenue at the same time last year, or 2% at constant currency. The FTSE 250 company said year-to-date revenue was ahead 9% on last year at the end of the third quarter, at £1.345bn, or 3% at constant exchange rates.

Newspaper round-up

Europe’s largest carmaker is looking at opening a British bank to help to fund sales of its cars in the UK after Brexit. Talks with the Bank of England are expected to lead to Volkswagen making a formal application for a banking licence that will allow it for the first time to take savers’ money. - The Times

Hundreds of trainee GPs have not received their salaries from the outsourcing company responsible for paying them, forcing some to turn to charities for emergency funds. Some GPs have been unable to cover their mortgages because of the delays by Capita, which holds a contract to administer training grants for GPs through a body called Primary Care Services England. - Guardian

All the main suppliers of trains to Britain’s railways have been shortlisted to build the fastest and most prestigious carriages on the UK network. The bidding process to supply the £2.75 billion, 225mph trains for HS2 has included a wild-card bid from Patentes Talgo, the Spanish high-speed manufacturer that has no rolling stock operating in the UK or any facilities in the country. High Speed Two, the government agency charged with delivering the £55 billion London-Birmingham-Manchester-Leeds project, announced a shortlist of five: Bombardier Transportation, Hitachi Rail Europe, Alstom Transport, Siemens and Patentes Talgo. - The Times

Apple expects record sales of iPhones in the run-up to Christmas, and dismissed any talk of weaker demand for its iPhone 8 models saying they "instantly became our top 2 selling products" on release. The update sent Apple shares to an all-time-high in after hours trading, up 3.2pc, taking its market capitalisation above $900bn (£670bn) for the first time. - Telegraph

The controversy over workers being being pushed into “dubious” self-employment has been reignited, with a parliamentary committee accusing a leisure group of “egregious” use of such contracts. On Thursday, parliament’s work and pensions committee said it had written to The Gym Group, an operator of 89 “low-cost” UK gyms, questioning why its contracts classify its personal trainers as self-employed when it places restrictions on what they can charge clients and when they can take holidays. - Guardian

Oleg Deripaska’s En+ Group has met scepticism among investors, leading to a London stock market debut at the bottom end of its price range. The aluminium and hydro-electricity producer will be priced at $14 per global depositary receipt, valuing the business at $7 billion and raising $1 billion. - The Times

US close

Stocks finished Thursday’s session mixed, with investors earlier reacting poorly to the latest quarterly updates out of Facebook and Tesla overnight and ahead of Friday's all-important monthly US jobs report.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended up 0.35% at 23,516.26, the S&P 500 eked out gains of 0.02% to 2,579.85, and the Nasdaq 100 fell 0.2% to 6,236.39.

Thursday’s muted start came despite leaks of Republicans' tax reform plans and 'market chatter' that the White House was set to name current Federal Reserve governor Jerome Powell in the place of Janet Yellen next March.

According to Kathleen Brooks, research director at City Index, Powell was the "continuity choice" although he was seen as "soft" on financial market regulation.

Brooks also pointed out that the position of Fed vice chair had yet to be filled as were four other seats in the central bank's top echelons, meaning there was still room for surprises on that front.

"The prospect of tax reform has been discounted by the markets over recent months anyways, which is another reason why Powell and his regulatory stance could be the next main driver of US banks in the coming months.

"Overall, we expect the Powell nomination to be taken in the market’s stride, but as we mention above, it is the other positions that could really shake things up at the Fed, so we wait and see who is next to be nominated to the board.”