London pre-open: Stocks seen muted ahead of ECB announcement

London stocks were set to nudge down at the open on Thursday as investors eye the latest policy announcement from the European Central Bank.

The FTSE 100 was called to open four points lower at 7,260.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "After three days of gains, European markets slipped back yesterday, as concern over Russian gas supplies, and political turmoil in Italy, and the threat of collapse of the government prompted some profit taking.

"US markets on the other hand, closed at their highest level in over a month, led by the Nasdaq 100 after the US Senate voted to push forward $50bn in subsidies to boost domestic chip manufacturing in the US.

"It doesn’t look like last night’s momentum will be carried forward into today’s European session with a slightly lower open expected, with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi expected to resign later today, in a huge blow to the ECB as they meet today where they are expected to raise rates for the first time in 11 years."

In corporate news, energy provider SSE said that its first quarter trading performance had "slightly exceeded" internal expectations, leading the group to reaffirm its full-year guidance for adjusted earnings per share of at least 120.0p.

SSE said progress had been made across various capex projects "at pace", with the first power from its Seagreen offshore wind farm asset expected by the end of July and construction on its Viking onshore wind farm and Dogger Bank A, B & C offshore wind farms said to be "progressing well".