Market overview: Stocks eke out slight advance

1630:Close The Footsie barely managed to eke out a positive close, with traders proving cautious following recent gains and given the headline risk surrounding speeches from two top US central banks officials tonight and tomorrow. Brexit polls leaning in the direction of the 'Remain' camp again coincided with gains in real estate stock and grocers. For their part, shares in miners tracked commodity prices higher. Reports also cited PBoC analysts according to whom China´s monetary authority favoured maintaining policy slightly loose. Mobile Telecommunications was also wanted after the European Commission found that the UK National Broadband Scheme for 2016-2020 complies with EU state aid rules. FTSE 100 up 0.04% or 2.80 points to 6,265.65.

1551: The Atlanta Fed´s GDPNow tracking estimate for the second quarter has been revised higher from 2.5% to 2.9%.

1500: The US pending home sales index jumped 5.10% month-on-month in April after a rise of 1.4% in the month before (consensus: 0.60%).

1330: US durable goods jumped by 3.4% month-on-month in April, boosted by a surge in civilian aircraft orders that distorted the headline figure. So-called core capital goods orders in fact fell 0.8% in comparison to March (consensus: 0.3%). In parallel, the Department of Labor reports initial weekly jobless claims decreased by 10,000 to hit 268,000 (consensus: 275,000).

1230: Three-month LME-traded copper futures are higher by 1.5% to $4,686.50 per metric tonne. The PBoC is set to keep policy slightly looses to support growth, Reuters reports citing local media. The same report which was referenced by the newswire said money supply as measured by M2 is likely to slow over the coming months.

1200: The latest report from the Financial Ombudsman has revealed that payment protection insurance remains the most complained about financial product, while complaints about packaged accounts and payday loans have surged. Banks are down on the news.

1030: Three-month copper futures are being quoted at $4,693 per metric tonne against Wednesday´s closing level of $4,627 a tonne. One-month implied pound-dollar volatility has jumped by approximately five percentage points to 16.48% according to Bloomberg - its highest level since May 2010 on a close of day basis. It was also about four percentage points above a similar three-month measure, the largest inversion since November 2008 as the enormity of the Lehman Brothers crash sank in.

0930: The UK´s gross domestic product expanded at a 0.4% quarter-on-quarter pace in the first three months of 2016, matching a preliminary estimate and economists' forecasts. Business investment fell by 0.5%, ostensibly due to the risk of Brexit, Pantheon Macroeconomics points out. Hence, it was household consumption, which grew by 0.5% over the quarter that saved the day, as net trade subtracted 0.4 percentage points from the rate of GDP growth. Public outlays were up 0.4%.

0858: Footsie is moving higher led by gains in miners, Big oil and grocers following an initial dip at the start of trading. Oil futures are atop the psychological $50 a barrel level on the ICE and the pound is edging higher as the latest Brexit poll results filtre through. Traders are waiting on Fedspeak scheduled for later in the day, although it remains to be seen whether St.Louis Fed president James Bullard any further colour to remarks made to CNBC on Wednesday. However, it may be difficult for Fed governor Powell to avoid remarks on the economy given that is the main topic of his speech at the Peterson institute today. He was one of the few FOMC voters this year which has still to make policy-relevant remarks recently. A raft of companies go ex-dividend today, including Carnival, DCC, Whitbread, Amec Foster Wheeler and Inchcape.