London pre-open: Stocks seen weaker as investors mull earnings, Fed minutes

London stocks were expected to open lower on Thursday as investors faced a deluge of corporate results from the likes of Barclays and digested the latest minutes from the Federal Reserve.

The FTSE 100 was seen starting the session 22 points lower at 7,280.

Late on Wednesday, the minutes from the latest Fed meeting revealed that a further tightening of US interest rates could be on the cards soon.

"Many participants expressed the view that it might be appropriate to raise the Federal Funds rate again fairly soon if incoming information on the labour market and inflation was in line with or stronger than their current expectations, or if the risks of overshooting the committee's maximum-employment and inflation objectives increased," the Fed said.

CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson said: “What did last night’s Fed minutes tell us that we didn’t already know? The answer is not much.

“Just over a week ago an unexpectedly hawkish Janet Yellen caught investors by surprise when she reiterated her comments that waiting too long to raise rates would be unwise, though she also acknowledged that the path around fiscal policy remained unclear. Nonetheless at the time bond yields inched back up, the US dollar rallied and the probability of a March rate hike jumped from 32% to 45% as the Fed chief delivered a fairly upbeat economic message to US lawmakers.

“It would appear that while investors had priced out the prospect of a move on rates in March the Fed, not unreasonably wanted to keep the markets guessing, and none of the recent comments by Fed policymakers have suggested that still isn’t the case.”

On the data front, the CBI distributive trades survey is at 1100 GMT. In the US, initial jobless claims are at 1330 GMT.

In corporate news, alongside reporting pre-tax profits almost tripled to £3.2bn, Barclays said it would close its non-core business six months earlier than previously planned.

Profits for 2016 were boosted as although revenues for the year fell 6% to £19.1bn, the FTSE 100-listed bank chopped its litigation and conduct costs down by two thirds to £1.4bn.

Paper manufacturer Mondi posted a 6% rise in pre tax profits to €843m (£715m) despite revenues falling by 2% to €6.6bn (£5.5bn). The dividend increased 10% to 57 cents.

Shopping centre owner Intu Properties' full year earnings increased with “strong” rental growth, although profit fell due to property revaluations.

Underlying earnings rose 7% for 2016 to £200m, compared to the previous year, primarily due to a 3.6% growth in like-for-like net rental income, which was in line with guidance, while profit fell to £172m from £518m due to property revaluations, although 2015 result included a property revaluation surplus of £351m.

The government has sold off a further chunk of shares in Lloyds Banking Group, it revealed on Thursday. The state's stake was cut from 3.57bn shares to 2.78bn, or 3.89% of the FTSE 100-listed bank's total share capital.

Utility services company Centrica posted its preliminary results for the year to 31 December 2016, with adjusted operating profit and adjusted earnings both up 4% to £1.52bn and £895m respectively, with adjusted basic earnings per share of 16.8p, down 2%.

Adjusted operating cash flow improved 19% to £2.7bn, which included a £357m working capital inflow in the UK business as Centrica refocused on the consumer end of the market.