London pre-open: Stocks seen muted ahead of construction PMI

London stocks looked set for a muted start on Monday after the FTSE 100 ended above the 7,000 mark at the end of last week for the first time since November 2017.

The FTSE 100 was called to open three points lower at 7,019.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "Asia markets have got off to a slow but positive start this week, taking their cues from a decent US payrolls report on Friday, and a China Caixin services PMI report which was slightly better than expected for January.

"Despite these gains markets in Europe look set for a fairly low key start in a week where the focus is set to remain on a weak economic outlook after some disappointing economic numbers last week. This week the focus will be on the services sector as the focus shifts to what measures the ECB has left in its locker to mitigate any further economic weakness."

On the data front, UK construction PMI for January is at 0930 GMT.

Hewson said: "Despite the collapse of Carillion, a year ago the UK construction sector has held up fairly well, though it has been slowing in recent months, hitting a three-month low in December. Housing was a little on the weak side, while civil engineering picked up quite sharply. Optimism in this sector has remained buoyant despite the economic gloom and could well see a pick up in the January numbers."

In corporate news, Indivior has agreed to sell the Chinese rights to a tablet version of its opioid addiction treatment for $122.5m and also said it had entered into an agreement with Alvogen Pine Brook to temporarily prevent it entering the sublingual film market in the US.

A preliminary injunction hearing in the US district courts had been scheduled for this Thursday over a temporary restraining order against Alvogen, but this will now not take place.

Elsewhere, cybersecurity provider Avast said it had sold its non-core remote monitoring and management (RMM) product Managed Workplace to Barracuda Networks for an undisclosed sum.

Managed Workplace sells RMM services to Managed Service Providers. “Barracuda, which has a large existing MSP base but does not currently offer an RMM solution, provides a better long-term solution for this business,” Avast said.

In addition, Barracuda has signed a reseller agreement, and will resell Avast's business security solutions to MSPs.

Serco said it had signed a £560m six year contract to supply health services to the Australian Defence Force through its Bupa Health Services sub-contractor.