London pre-open: Stocks seen flat ahead of ECB

London stocks are set for a steady start on Thursday, as investors look to the European Central Bank announcement amid expectations of further stimulus.

The FTSE 100 is seen starting unchanged at 6,146.

“Expectations are for ECB President Mario Draghi to set aside concerns about negative rates from senior banking figures and announce another cut in the deposit rate from -0.3% to -0.4%,” said Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets.

“At the same time the ECB is expected to boost the monthly bond buying amount from €60bn to €70bn, despite warnings from the Bank for International Settlements, and the IMF’s managing director David Lipton of navigating further into the murky waters of negative interest rate territory.”

The ECB rate announcement is at 1245 GMT, with the press conference at 1330 GMT. In the US, initial jobless claims are due at 1330 GMT.

Aviva reported operating profits of £2.7bn in mammoth final results on Thursday, an increase of 20% on last year. Its full-year profit after tax hit £1.08bn.

The insurer also revealed it was expecting £1.2bn in capital benefits from the integration of Friends Life, and had already made £168m of the £225m integration savings previously promised.

Aviva also revealed its solvency capital ratio for the first time under the new Solvency II rules. Its ratio at the end of December was 180%, at the top end of its internal working range.

Morrisons' annual profits fell more than a quarter but like-for-like sales fell only 2.0% after a strong improvement in the fourth quarter.

Looking forward, management unveiled an encouraging new dividend policy and said more costs would be taken out of the business than previously hoped, but cautioned that the turnaround of the supermarket group "will take time".

Britain's competition watchdog has recommended price controls for energy customers on prepayment meters, and suggested that market rivals should have access to customer databases to improve switching between suppliers.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it wanted transitional price controls for more vulnerable customers on prepayment meters until 2020. It said this group found it difficult to switch suppliers.