London pre-open: Stocks seen firmer as investors eye services data
Stocks in London were set for a slightly firmer open on Wednesday as investors eyed some key services data.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 14 points higher at 7,335.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "The services sector has been one of the main reasons the UK economy has managed to shrug off all the plague of locusts talk post last year’s referendum, however rising prices do appear to be starting to take their toll on consumers wallets, and the services sector.
"Today’s March number is expected to show a slight improvement to 53.5 from 53.3 in February, though there is a concern that we might come in weaker than that, given recent weakness in some third party retail sales and lending data."
Markit's services purchasing managers' index is at 0900 BST. In the US, the ADP employment report is at 1315 BST, while Markit's services PMI is at 1445 BST and ISM non-manufacturing is at 1500 BST.
After the London close, investors will be looking out for the latest FOMC minutes at 1900 BST.
Market participants will also be eyeing a meeting between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on Thursday.
On the corporate front, design, engineering and project management consultancy WS Atkins said it would pay £34.5m into its pension fund in the current financial year after it revealed a deficit of £318m.
In a statement, Atkins said it had agreed with the fund's trustees to increase payments by 2.5% a year as party of a repayment plan to 2025.
Irish services group DCC is to buy Royal Dutch Shell's liquefied petroleum gas business in Hong Kong and Macau for about £120m (HK$1.16bn), subject to regulatory consent.
The company’s acquisition from Shell Gas (LPG) Holdings is expected to complete by the end of March 2018.
Retirement housebuilder McCarthy & Stone bumped up its interim dividend 80% as it reported a 42% slump in underlying profits for the first half of the year but its confidence in hitting full year targets.
Furthermore, with the FTSE 250 company enjoying a strong period of planning consents and it not only began building activity on 44 new sites by the end of March, up from 34 a year before, it also expected a further 16 or so by the end of the current quarter to enable it to double the number of sales releases in the 2018 financial year.
Medical technology company ConvaTec Group announced the US launch of ‘Foam Lite’ ConvaTec dressing on Wednesday, which it described as a light, flexible silicone foam dressing for managing low to non-exuding chronic and acute wounds.
The group said the launch of ‘Foam Lite’ stateside continued the company's expansion into large, growing segments of advanced wound care, beginning with the successful launch of ‘AQUACEL’ foam dressing into the $1.2bn foam market, and most recently with the European launch of the ‘Avelle’ negative pressure wound therapy (NPWT) system into the fast-growing disposable segment of the NPWT market.