London pre-open: Stocks seen up in holiday-thinned trade

London stocks were set to rise at the open on Wednesday but volumes were expected to be thin as many traders remain away from their desks until after the new year.

The FTSE 100 was called to open up around 0.7%.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade, said: "US and European futures are trading higher as investors continue to favour riskier assets. Having said that, investors are still monitoring the Omicron situation closely which has led to regional and national lockdowns around the globe.

"The optimism is that we are not going to see these restrictions staying in place for an extended period of time. Supply chain issues are already profound and no one wants to see them becoming more worse as it will hurt economic growth in the US and rest of the world.

"Today, investors will be looking at wholesale inventories data to see how businesses project economic activity will be like in the short term. Similarly, pending home sales data is also scheduled to be released today.

"Overall, market sentiment was mixed due to a rise in coronavirus cases in the United States. As a result, investors are weighing the risks of rapidly rising Covid-19 cases against aggressive monetary tightening by the Federal Reserve to determine what economic growth will look like in 2022."

In corporate news, Fresnillo said mill commissioning at its Juanicipio joint venture in Mexico had been delayed by six months after the state electricity company said it could not give the go-ahead for connection to the national power grid due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The silver and gold project is operated with MAG Silver Corp. Mexico’s Comisión Federal de Electricidad said staff shortages meant it could not review the existing installation; supervise physical connection to the active power grid; and approve required blackout prevention devices.