London pre-open: Stocks seen higher as investors mull Nvidia results

London stocks were set to rise at the open on Thursday as investors mulled results from US chip maker Nvidia overnight.

The FTSE 100 was called to open around 22 points higher.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "Nvidia generated a record $30bn in sales in Q2 - up by 122%, the profits surged 166% to $16.6bn, the company said that they expect to sell $32.5bn in the current quarter (more than $31.9bn expected by analysts) and announced a $50bn share buyback program. It could hardly do better.

"The actual results and the forecast beat the average market expectations by a great margin and there was nothing the company could do more to keep the enthusiasm going… but hey, they fell short of the highest estimates on Wall Street.

"And when I say ‘highest estimates’ I am talking about third quarter revenue forecast from some analysts of nearly $38bn, for example, which is off chart but which is also the reason why Nvidia’s stock price could challenge odds and rumours that it was maybe overvalued.

"So guess what, investors were not impressed by the comfortable revenue beat that Nvidia announced last night - a seventh consecutive quarter beat and the fifth consecutive quarter beat of $2bn - and sent the stock price nearly 7% lower in the afterhours trading. The shiny results were clouded by the delay of the next-generation Blackwell chip and the rising worries that competition will soon arrive to tap into Nvidia’s monstrous market share - that stands near 80% for the advanced chips.

"Combined with the news that Nvidia is under the DoJ investigation regarding whether it has abused its dominant market position doesn’t make the Nasdaq futures look good this morning. They are down by around 0.62% at the time of talking."

In UK corporate news, GSK announced that the European Commission has approved Arexvy, the first respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine, for adults aged 50 to 59 at increased risk due to underlying medical conditions.

The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the approval expanded the vaccine's indication, which was previously authorised for adults aged 60 and over, and aimed to protect the estimated 20 million at-risk adults in the age group across Europe ahead of the RSV season. It was also approved in the US, with additional approvals expected in other countries, including Japan, later in the year.

Ofgem has closed its probe into the biomass profiling data of Drax after investigating whether or not the power station group failed to meet sustainability criteria of so-called Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs).

Drax chief executive Will Gardiner said the news was “welcome” but said management “recognise[d] the importance of maintaining a strong evidence base and are continuing to invest to improve confidence in our future reporting”.

Hotels group PPHE posted a jump in half-yearly profits and held guidance despite supply chain issues holding up full openings of new art’hotel properties in London and Rome, delaying meaningful earnings contributions.

EBITDA for the six months to June rose 6.7% to £48.3m as revenue hit a record £191m, up 6.1%. However revenue per available room - a key industry metric - fell 2.2% to £107.8 as prices normalised after the Covid pandemic.