Glencore reports production, Paddy Power enters Georgia

London open

The FTSE 100 is seen climbing 10 more points on Friday morning after finishing the previous day at 6,968.85.

Stocks to watch

Glencore unearthed more copper, cobalt and nickel in the fourth quarter of 2018 compared to the quarter before, while zinc, lead, gold and silver all dipped. For the year as a whole, the mining and commodities trading giant turned out 1.45m tonnes of copper, up 11% than the year before.

Paddy Power Betfair said it had bought an initial 51% controlling stake in Georgian betting outfit Adjarabet for £101m, adding that it expected to snap up the rest of the company within three years. Adjarabet is licensed to offer a full suite of online betting and gaming products in Georgia including casino, sports, poker and peer-to-peer games.

TalkTalk reported a good third-quarter, with the eighth consecutive period of rising customer numbers and record demand for Fibre. For the full year the telecoms company cut its guidance for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation to £245-250m after £10-15m due to an IFRS 15 accounting adjustment. The guidance does not include £5-10m of costs from the FibreNation joint venture.

Newspaper round-up

Nearly one in three British businesses are planning to relocate some of their operations abroad or have already shifted them to cope with a hard Brexit, according to a leading lobby group. The Institute of Directors (IoD) warned that 29% of firms in a survey of 1,200 members believed Brexit posed a significant risk to their operations in the UK and had either moved part of their businesses abroad already or were planning to do so. – Guardian

MPs are to launch a new inquiry into the heavily criticised business rates system amid warnings that a further 100,000 shops will close this year. Nicky Morgan MP, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, said the inquiry would scrutinise the changes in reliefs and allowances that had already been announced by the Government, the burden on companies and the “behaviours it drives in businesses”. – Telegraph

A Tory MP has said he is "hugely concerned" a government agency could have played a role in the Royal Bank of Scotland's scandal-hit turnaround unit after it emerged the bank's top executives had their pay linked to the agency. Documents referenced in court on Thursday showed that senior bankers, including RBS's former chief executive Stephen Hester, had their bonuses pegged to the success of government agency the Asset Protection Agency (APA) in 2010. – Telegraph

US close

US stocks turned in a mixed performance on Thursday as investors digested dovish comments from Fed chairman Jerome Powell and a slew of earnings from the likes of Facebook and Microsoft.

At the close, the Dow Jones Industrial was down 0.06% at 24,999.67, while the S&P 500 closed out its best January in 32 years 0.86% higher at 2,704.10 and the Nasdaq traded 1.37% firmer at 7,281.74.

The Dow closed lower after the Federal Reserve left interest rates on hold at between 2.25% and 2.5% on Wednesday, as expected. Market participants took comfort from the fact that the Fed dropped the phrase "further gradual increases" in relation to rate hikes from its statement.