Wizz Air sees faster passenger growth, LSE buys share of Euroclear

London open

The FTSE 100 is expected to open 32 points higher on Wednesday, having closed up 1.29% at 6,833.93 on Tuesday.

Stocks to watch

London Stock Exchange Group said it was buying a 4.92% stake in financial market infrastructure company Euroclear for €278.5m (£241.9m). Euroclear provides settlement, custody and collateral management services across Europe with €28.2trln in assets under custody.

Wizz Air reported faster sales growth in the three months to end-December but the budget central and eastern Europe airline saw a continued squeeze on its margins. With 8.1m passengers carried during the third quarter of the group's financial year, up 14.9% on the previous year, revenues climbed 21.2% to €512.7m. Guidance for full-year net profit was maintained for between €270m and €300m even though profit for the period sank almost 90% to €1.7m.

Infrastructure investor 3i Infrastructure updated the market on its third quarter on Wednesday, reporting that it continued to perform in line with expectations, and was delivering a “good” level of income. The FTSE 250 firm said total portfolio income and non-income cash was £25.9m for the three months ended 31 December. It said it was on track to deliver its target dividend of 8.65p per share for the 2019 financial year, with the full-year dividend expected to be covered with a “significant” surplus.

Newspaper round-up

Mike Ashley could be about to make the leap from sportswear to sofa retailing with yet another takeover deal, this time of the online furniture specialist Sofa.com. The Sports Direct founder has been on a buying spree over the past year, snapping up struggling retail chains including House of Fraser and the bike specialist Evans Cycles amid a high street crisis. He is also currently in the running to acquire the collapsed entertainment chain HMV. – Guardian

House prices have grown fastest since the UK voted to leave the EU in cities in the Midlands, the north of England, Wales and Scotland, according to the property website Zoopla. Birmingham (up 16%), Manchester and Leicester (both up 15%) have seen the fastest growth since the June 2016 referendum, followed by Edinburgh and Nottingham (14%), Leeds and Cardiff (12%), and Liverpool and Sheffield (11%). – Guardian

Lord Browne of Madingley and other members of Huawei’s UK board are under pressure to review their ties to the Chinese telecoms giant after it was hit with a slew of criminal charges by the US government. Huawei came under fire Monday evening after the US Department of Justice charged the company on accounts of “attempted thefts of trade secrets”, seven counts of wire fraud and obstruction of justice. – Telegraph

Apple has revealed its first sales drop in more than two years and warned of further falls in the coming months as it confirmed that its iPhone business had gone into decline. The company revealed that revenues in the final three months of 2018, its traditionally lucrative Christmas period, had fallen by 5pc to $84.3bn (£64.5bn). – Telegraph

The government had “day-to-day” involvement and “strategic” control over the treatment of companies in the hands of Royal Bank of Scotland’s scandal-hit restructuring division, according to allegations in a legal claim against the bank. Court papers reveal that Oliver Morley, a wealthy property developer who is suing RBS, is also considering taking legal action against the Treasury over its alleged role in influencing the aggressive tactics employed against businesses by the bank’s Global Restructuring Group (GRG). – The Times

US close

Wall Street finished as its started on Tuesday - in a mixed state - amid fresh trade tensions between the US and China and a slew of high-profile earnings.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended the session up 0.21% at 24,579.96, while the S&P 500 slipped 0.15% to 2,640.00, and the Nasdaq 100 slid 0.96% to 6,632.79.

Earlier, the Dow opened 120 points higher as market participants patiently awaited two days of Sino-US trade talks, set to kick-off in Washington on Wednesday, following news that the US Justice Department had filed a host of criminal charges against Chinese telecoms company Huawei and its chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou.

The US delegation will be led by Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and will include Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Trump's policy advisers Larry Kudlow and Peter Navarro, while the Chinese delegation will be led by Vice Premier Liu He.

“Trade talks between the US and China appeared to be going rather well until last week when speculation started circling that a preparatory meeting prior to Liu He’s visit this week had been cancelled,” said Oanda analyst Craig Erlam earlier.