London pre-open: Stocks seen higher; housebuilders in focus

London stocks were expected to open higher on Tuesday as traders in the US get back to their desks following the Labor Day Holiday.

The FTSE 100 was set to open 14 points firmer than Monday’s close at 6,893.

CMC Markets’ Jasper Lawler said: “The absence of US investors made for quiet trading in European stock markets on Monday so their return on Tuesday could see markets try to break recent range,” adding that the FTSE 100 has been capped at 6,900 for the last three weeks.

“The action on Monday was found in oil markets and it was the unravelling of a sharp intraday rally in oil that saw stock markets pare gains later on. The sudden 5% jump in oil futures contracts on rumours of an agreement reached between Saudi Arabia and Russia gives an indication of the importance the market is placing on OPEC/Russian output. Clearly the deal announced to share technology amongst other things was not the output freeze markets had been hoping for.”

There are no major UK data releases due, but in the US, Markit’s services PMI is at 1445 BST, while ISM non-manufacturing is at 1500 BST.

In corporate news, FTSE 100 listed budget airline EasyJet increased passenger numbers by 6.4% in August, compared to the same month the previous year, as the load factor, the number of passengers as proportion of the number of seats available, increased by 0.5%.

For the rolling 12 months ended 31 August passenger numbers were up 6.8% as the load factor also rose by 0.4%.

Housebuilder and property developer Berkeley Group issued an interim management statement for the period from 1 May to 31 August on Tuesday, as investors gathered for its annual general meeting.

The firm said it entered 2016/17 with record cash due on forward sales of £3.25bn and future estimated land bank gross margin of £6.15b, respectively.

FTSE 250 housebuilder Redrow reported a jump in pre-tax profit for the full year as revenue grew and the company lifted its dividend.

For the year to the end of June, pre-tax profit was up 23% to £250m on revenue of £1.38bn, up 20% from the year before. Legal completions rose 17% and the company upped its full-year dividend to 10p from 6p.