London pre-open: Stocks seen muted as Britons head to polls

London stocks were set for a muted open on Thursday ahead of several key events, with the election very much in focus in the UK.

The FTSE 100 was expected to open unchanged at 7,478.

As Britons head to the polls, across the pond former FBI boss James Comey will be testifying before the Senate panel about Russia's involvement in the US presidential election, while a European Central Bank meeting is also due to take place.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam said: "Thursday promises to be a massive day for financial markets with major risk events taking place in the UK, eurozone and US that could create substantial volatility throughout the day.

As far as the election is concerned, he said the most undesirable outcome is a hung parliament that produces both domestic political uncertainty and, more importantly, uncertainty and delays in Brexit negotiations.

"With the currently deadline being March 2019, any delay will be detrimental to the UK in negotiations and could therefore be devastating for sterling. While the knee jerk reaction to this may also be bad for the FTSE, as we saw after the EU referendum, we could see this bounce back quite quickly with the weaker currency benefiting its mostly outward facing companies."

Meanwhile, the ECB meeting will be particularly interesting after a leaked draft of ECB staff projections showed the central bank is revising its GDP forecasts higher but cutting its inflation forecasts through 2019.

In corporate news, Ultra Electronics said its US-based Ocean Systems business had won a $10m (£7.72m) contract from the UK Ministry of Defence for the production of two variants, 101 and 102, of the Submarine Countermeasure Acoustic Device (SCAD) for the Royal Navy's submarine fleet.

Auto Trader Group more than doubled its dividend as revenue and earnings beat expectations for its full-year performance, with the new year forecast to see greater used car sales volumes and improving margins. Revenue for the year to 31 March was up 9% to £311.4m, beating the consensus analyst forecast of £310m, although the 19% rise in underlying operating profits to £207.2m was short of the consensus £212m.

Petrofac announced on Thursday that it secured a long-term framework agreement with Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) for the provision of engineering, procurement and construction management (EP+Cm) support services for major oil and gas projects.

The FTSE 250 company said the agreement, which was for ten years with an additional five-year option, built upon a three-year programme of EP+Cm support contract delivery Petrofac had already undertaken on behalf of PDO. Future projects undertaken through the framework agreement would be supported by Petrofac's Muscat office for technical delivery and to ensure sustainable in-country value is generated.