London pre-open: Stocks seen up on positive US and Asia leads; payrolls eyed

London stocks were seen opening higher on Friday, taking their cue from positive sessions in the US and Asia as investors looked to the release of the all-important non-farm payrolls.

The FTSE 100 was seen starting 30 points higher than Thursday’s close at 6,215.

Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said: “The main focus today is set to be on today’s US payrolls report for May with the prospect that a decent report could raise expectations about the timing of a Fed rate hike.

“Expectations around today’s number are for 160k new jobs to be added for May, unchanged from the number in April, however given that some of the more recent manufacturing data has been on the weak side there is the possibility that we could come in below that.”

Hewson said the he unemployment rate is expected to decline from 5% to 4.9%, which would be a welcome boost to the hawks amongst US policymakers.

“However it would really need to happen without a similar fall in the participation rate, to suggest that the labour market is getting tighter.”

UK services PMI is at 0930 BST. In the US, trade balance is at 1330 BST, along with the nonfarm payrolls report and the unemployment rate. US Markit services PMI is at 1445 BST while ISM non-manufacturing and durable goods orders are at 1500 BST.

ICAP wins services deal in China

Markets operator and provider of post-trade risk mitigation and information services ICAP announced on Friday that China Foreign Exchange Trade System has chosen it to deliver the underlying technology for fixed income and foreign exchange electronic execution services in mainland China.

The FTSE 250 firm said CFETS - China’s official interbank market trading platform and infrastructure provider - has been planning its so-called Next-Generation Trading System for a number of years.

It said ICAP was chosen to cooperate with CFETS on the core trading components of the system, which will enhance its capability to offer central limit order book and disclosed trading models for FX spot, forwards and swaps and a disclosed trading model for cash bonds to the onshore renminbi market, through a localised EBS BrokerTec graphical user interface.

The deal, valued at $65m over a three-year period, will be delivered by ICAP division EBS BrokerTec, and will see the company expand into China with EBS opening a local office and development centre in Shanghai.

International real estate advisory firm Savills announced a fresh investment on Friday, confirming that is proprietary investment subsidiary Grosvenor Hill Ventures has taken a minority stake in YOPA Property, by participating in its £16m equity fundraising.

The FTSE 250 firm said YOPA’s fundraising was to fund the rollout of its “online hybrid estate agency” in the high-volume segment of the UK market.

It said YOPA was founded in 2014 and has since developed its technology-led business model, which was launched in hybrid form in January 2016.