London pre-open: Stocks set for muted open

Stocks in London were set for a muted open on Friday, with little due in the way of macroeconomic news to provide any direction and corporate releases thin on the ground.

The FTSE 100 was called to open just four points higher than Thursday’s close at 6,798.

CMC Markets’ Michael Hewson said: “It looks like being a fairly mixed bag of a week for European equity markets as we come to the end of the week with the FTSE100 holding up fairly well, though markets in Europe have struggled with Italian markets in particular having a bad week, as bond yields there pushed sharply higher on rising political concerns, ahead of next month’s referendum.”

There are no major UK data due.

In corporate news, engineering distribution firm Electrocomponents reported a 44% jump in first half profits to £55.1m.

Revenues were up to £706m from £626m and the interim dividend was unchanged at 5p.

The company said it had made an encouraging start to the second half of the year, with all hubs seeing an improvement in underlying revenue growth in October versus the Q2 trend.

DIY company Grafton Group has agreed to by Dutch ironmonger Gunters en Meuser in order to increase its presence in Amsterdam.

The deal, which is subject to approval from the Dutch competition authority, is expected to take place in January.

Bodycote issued a trading update for the period from 1 July to 31 October on Friday, with group revenue 12.7% higher than the same period last year and 3.1% lower at constant exchange rates, against somewhat weak comparables.

Several new sites were acquired in the period with annualised sales of £14m, though the contribution to full year 2016 EPS from the new businesses will be minimal while they are integrated into the group. Revenue from ongoing operations were 13.2% higher, or 2.7% lower at constant exchange rates.