London open: UK stocks tread water ahead of BoE, ECB policy meetings

The UK stock market opened more or less unchanged on Thursday as investors scaled back their risk appetite ahead of a busy day, with central bank meetings lying ahead in the UK and Europe.

While both the Bank of England and European Central Bank are expected to leave monetary policy unchanged, all eyes will be on ECB president Mario Draghi after recent hints that the bank could soon embark on 'full-blown' quantitative easing.

The FTSE 100 was trading just 0.1% lower at 6,712 in early deals.

Mike van Dulken, head of research at Accendo Markets, said that momentum has "cooled" after recent gains, but "it was healthy to see that 6,700 wasn’t revisited with support emerging around 6,710/20".

"There will be much focus on ECB president Draghi’s press conference as it may - many hope - include stronger hints/commitment for further stimulus (QE) in 2015 to combat deflationary/recessionary risk. If not, markets may be disappointed," he said.

The closely-watched US employment report is due on Friday and is forecast to show that 230,000 non-farm jobs were added in November. The jobless rate is expected to remain unchanged at 5.8%.

In the meantime, investors will be focusing on a raft of economic data on Thursday, including UK house-price figures from Halifax, UK car registrations, the Eurozone retail purchasing managers' index and US jobless claims.

Easyjet and TUI Travel lead gains

Budget airline Easyjet was flying high after saying that passenger numbers increased by 3.1% to 4,386,296 in November against the same month in 2013.

Travel tour operator TUI Travel impressed after meeting expectations with a 4% rise in annual profits as the company painted a positive outlook for the winter and upcoming summer season ahead of its planned merger with parent group TUI AG.

North Sea-focused oil producer Enquest was extending gains after the government cut tax measures for the industry in its Autumn Statement to encourage investment. The supplementary charge on oil firms' profits will be reduced from 32% to 30%.

A number of heavyweight stocks were lower after going ex-dividend, including London Stock Exchange, Severn Trent, Next, Whitbread, Land Securities and RBS.

Market Movers
techMARK 2,942.37 +0.06%
FTSE 100 6,712.48 -0.06%
FTSE 250 15,835.09 +0.15%

FTSE 100 - Risers
TUI Travel (TT.) 441.10p +2.89%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,710.00p +2.52%
Unilever (ULVR) 2,740.00p +2.39%
Sage Group (SGE) 431.70p +2.27%
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) 2,630.00p +1.90%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 971.90p +1.78%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,567.00p +1.75%
Old Mutual (OML) 199.90p +1.47%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,109.00p +1.19%
Royal Mail (RMG) 402.50p +1.13%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Anglo American (AAL) 1,298.50p -1.63%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,994.00p -1.58%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,272.00p -1.36%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 796.00p -1.30%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 237.40p -1.29%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,499.50p -1.25%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 182.00p -1.14%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 224.75p -1.14%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,977.00p -1.13%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,473.00p -1.11%

FTSE 250 - Risers
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 305.00p +5.76%
Alent (ALNT) 352.10p +3.68%
EnQuest (ENQ) 50.65p +3.37%
Betfair Group (BET) 1,413.00p +3.29%
Polymetal International (POLY) 612.00p +2.34%
Redefine International (RDI) 51.35p +2.29%
Just Retirement Group (JRG) 144.00p +2.27%
Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 2,524.00p +2.27%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 135.50p +2.26%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 468.10p +2.00%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Ferrexpo (FXPO) 64.70p -5.69%
Debenhams (DEB) 70.30p -3.96%
Greencore Group (GNC) 288.00p -3.10%
Centamin (DI) (CEY) 47.95p -3.05%
Serco Group (SRP) 165.80p -2.81%
Electrocomponents (ECM) 206.00p -2.74%
De La Rue (DLAR) 524.00p -2.06%
Foxtons Group (FOXT) 150.10p -1.77%
Britvic (BVIC) 668.00p -1.76%
Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 906.00p -1.74%