London pre-open: Stocks seen lower as investors remain wary

London stocks are expected to open lower on Tuesday amid ongoing concern about the slowdown in China, with investors likely to keep a close eye on oil prices following heavy falls in the previous session.

The FTSE 100 is seen starting 20 points lower than Monday’s close at 5,852.

“Markets remain nervous about the health of the Chinese economy and are likely to remain so until next week’s Q4 GDP and December industrial production and retail sales numbers give a clearer picture, though tomorrow’s December trade data is also likely to add the mix,” said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

On the data front, UK manufacturing and industrial production figures for November are due at 0930 GMT.

“Today’s data is expected to paint a fairly lacklustre picture of the sector with manufacturing output expected to come in at 0.1%, up from a 0.4% decline in October. Industrial production is expected to flat line at 0%.”

Morrison's reports solid Christmas trading

Morrison's delivered an unexpectedly solid Christmas trading update in a welcome turnaround under new chief executive David Potts.

Like-for-like (LFL) sales were up 0.2%, some way better than the 2% decline predicted by analysts, helped by online grocery sales doubling and LFL transaction numbers up 1.3% on the same period last year in core supermarkets.

Direct Line Insurance Group estimates insurance claims for the series of storms in December will total between £110m and £140m.

It followed Storm Desmond on December 5 to 6, Storm Eva on Christmas Eve, and Storm Frank on December 28 and 29, which caused severe flooding in parts of the UK.

The FTSE 100 company said home claims are estimated at between £80m and £100m, while commercial claims are expected to be between £30m and £40m.

Greggs the baker reported a healthy 5.2% rise in sales for the 52 weeks to 2 January 2015 and said it expected full year results to be in line with expectations.

The company said statutory total sales for the 52 weeks of 2015 were up 3.7% against a 53 week year in 2014.

Greggs said it had completed 202 refits completed in 2015, as well as 20 conversions of it larger bakery cafés, while it opened 122 new shops in the year with 74 closures. It had 1,698 shops trading as at 2 January 2016.