London pre-open: Stocks seen up amid Covid-19 vaccine hopes

London stocks were set to rise at the open on Thursday as investors welcomed news of a potential coronavirus vaccine.

The FTSE 100 was called to open 40 points higher at 6,198.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "Some of yesterday’s early Q3 enthusiasm came about as a result of continued improvements in economic data, coupled with optimism over an experimental vaccine from Pfizer and BioNtech which produced positive antibody results, thus helping the overall mood.

"Markets in Asia had a fairly decent session, lifted by the positive vaccine news, with markets here in Europe set to open higher ahead of today’s US nonfarm payrolls report for June, which is due to be released today due to tomorrow’s Independence Day holiday in the US."

The nonfarm payrolls report, unemployment rate and average earnings are due at 1330 BST.

In corporate news, Associated British Foods said it expected full year adjusted operating profit for Primark, excluding exceptional charges, will be in the range £300-350m for the full year compared to £913m reported for the last financial year, reflecting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The company said nearly all the budget stores had now reopened after lockdown measures eased across its markets. Revenue at its retail division was down 75% to £582m in the third quarter.

LondonMetric Property said that 95% of its advance rental payments due up to 24 June has been collected, or was being collected monthly.

The FTSE 250 company said a further 3% was expected to be received “imminently”, and the remaining 2% was in discussions - less than half of which was expected to be forgiven.

As a result of the “strong” rent collection, it said it was intending to increase its first quarterly dividend for the financial year ending 31 March 2021.