London pre-open: Stocks seen higher after heavy falls

London stocks are expected to open higher on Thursday following the heavy selloff in the previous session and as US stocks closed off their lows.

The FTSE 1000 is called to open 52 points higher than Wednesday’s close at 5,725.

“Now that equity markets, both here in Europe and in the US have slipped into bear market territory the big question is where do we go to next,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

“That looks highly likely to depend on oil prices and a late rebound off the lows yesterday did see US markets recoup a large portion of their losses, the Dow was 566 points down at one stage, but they still finished the day below their previous lows in August.”

There are no major UK data releases due, so investors will turn their attention to the US, where initial jobless claims and the Philadelphia Fed survey are at 1330 GMT.

US consumer confidence is due at 1500 GMT.

SABMiller has posted strong net producer revenue (NPR) growth for the third quarter, however that has been knocked back due to the US dollar.

The company said it saw 7% growth across the group for the three months to 31 December 2015, however when foreign exchange was taken into account, that dropped to a fall of 8% for the quarter.

For the year to date, NPR grew 5%, but was again hit by the US dollar, with a year to date decline of 9%.

The group saw a strong increase in revenue in Africa, with 12% growth in revenue and an 8% growth in beverage volumes for the quarter.

Fund manager St James's Place said net inflows for 2015 rose 14% to £5.09bn.

Retention of client funds was 95% and funds under management were up 13% for the year to £58.6bn.

Royal Mail delivered the goods in a strong Christmas period, with UK parcel volumes in December were 6% better than the year before, and said it was on track to reduce UK parcel costs by at least 1% for the full year.

This festive surge means that for the nine months to 27 December UK parcel volumes were up 4%, while letters volumes were down 3%.

European parcel volumes at the GLS arm rose by a better than expected 11% and thanks to the recent strong trading, management are now confident that margins will remain steady for the full year, and not decline as had been feared.