London pre-open: Stocks seen flat ahead of non-farm payrolls

Stocks in London were set to open unchanged as investors erred on the side of caution ahead of the US non-farm payrolls report.

The FTSE 100 was called to open just two points higher than Thursday’s close at 7,197. The index hit its sixth consecutive all-time high on Thursday.

“The FTSE 100 managed to post its longest run of positive closes since 1997 yesterday, closing higher for the eighth day in succession while at the same time also posting a new record peak as well,” said CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson.

There are no major UK data releases due but the US non-farm payrolls report is at 1330 GMT along with the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings.

Analysts expect the data show the US economy added 178,000 jobs in December, which is slightly higher than the previous month but still below the 12-month average of 193,000.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate is expected to have edged up to 4.7% from 4.6% in November.

Hewson said: “For the last two years the November and December jobs numbers have been pretty strong numbers due largely to large amounts of temporary hiring that takes place in the lead up to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“In 2016 this jobs growth hasn’t been on anywhere the same scale with ADP for December showing half the additional jobs from twelve months ago, while the November BLS numbers were also underwhelming, which might suggest that today’s number could disappoint.”

In corporate news, budget airline easyJet’s passenger numbers and load factor improved in December.

The FTSE 100 company’s passenger numbers jumped 15.1% to 5.57m last month, compared to the same month the previous year, while the load factor - the number of passengers as a proportion of the number of seats available - rose 3.3 percentage points to 89.9%.

Clarkson issued a very short trading update on Friday, prior to entering its close period, and ahead of the announcement of its results for the year to 31 December.

The FTSE 250 company confirmed that the full year results for 2016 are expected to be in line with expectations.

Interdealer broker TP ICAP, formerly Tullett Prebon, saw increased trading activity in the final quarter of 2016 and expects an increase in revenue for the year.

The group expects revenue for the year ended 31 December 2016 to be 12% higher than the £796m reported the previous year, and a 4% rise at constant exchange rates.