London pre-open: Stocks seen flat after fresh record

London stocks were set to kick off the last trading session of the year – a half day – in a fairly muted fashion after the index closed at a fresh record high in the previous session.

The FTSE 100 was expected to open just four points lower than Thursday’s close at 7,116.

On Thursday, the index closed at a fresh high of 7,120.26, boosted by precious metals miners such as Fresnillo and Randgold Resources, as gold prices advanced.

There are no UK data releases of note due, but in the US, the Chicago purchasing managers’ index is at 1445 GMT.

In corporate news, property developer Hammerson will sell its 50% stake in the Watermark leisure and dining site near the Westquay shopping centre in Southampton to GIC, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund and the company's Westquay joint venture partner, for £48.5m.

The tenure of the Westquay joint venture will also been extended, with Hammerson receiving a fee from the joint venture for the ongoing management of the shopping centre and the deal is expected to complete before the end of the year.

Elsewhere, developer of the proprietary Fruitflow heart-health functional food ingredient Provexis posted its unaudited interim results for the six months to 30 September on Friday, with total revenue for the period of £0.12m.

The AIM-traded company said that was a threefold increase from the prior year, with revenue for the half year to September also exceeding revenue for the full year to March 2016.Its underlying operating loss was reduced to £0.13m, from £0.2m, which was a record low for the group.