London pre-open: Stocks to edge higher, tracking gains on Wall Street

UK stocks were being called to start the morning slightly higher, tracking overnights gains on Wall Street that saw the Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 establish fresh record highs.

That followed the European Central bank´s latest policy moves which left economists a tad divided in the market as to whether they in fact constituted a tightening or easing of policy; although in the end they appeared to opt for the latter of the two possible interpretations.

"Looking at the wider picture all the ECB has done is reduce the monthly asset purchase amount back to the levels it was in March this year, when they were still some concerns that deflation was becoming entrenched. This is clearly not the case now with EU CPI at 31 month highs and therefore the governing council feels comfortable with the idea of reverting back to the original program amount.

"The resultant sell-off in the euro speaks to the fact that ECB and Fed policy are likely to be divergent for much longer than bond markets were pricing in 24 hours ago, while the spike in yields speaks to the fact that we could well see further upwards pressure on inflation," said Michael Hewson, Chief Market Analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Acting as a backdrop, Chinese price data released overnight revealed that consumer prices in Asia´s largest economy rose at a 2.3% year-on-year pace in November, up from 2.1% in October (consensus: 2.2%).

Factory gate inflation accelerated even more quickly, with the country´s producer price index rising at a 3.3% clip year-on-year, a five-year high, up from 1.2% in the month before, with industrial commodity price increases the main culprit.

Visible trade and construction output data for the month of October in UK were scheduled for release later in the session, followed by the latest reading on US consumer confidence later in the day.

John Laing reports strong investment activity

International originator, active investor and manager of infrastructure projects, John Laing Group, posted a pre-close update for the year to 31 December on Friday.The FTSE 250 firm said primary Investment activity remained strong in each of its three geographical regions of Asia Pacific, North America and Europe - including the UK.Total investment commitments to date were £181m, in line with guidance for 2016, while total realisations agreed to date in 2016 were £255m.

Landscape products group Marshalls said on Friday that it is confident of meeting its expectations for 2016 as it reported a rise in revenue for the 11 months to 30 November. Revenue grew 3% to £375m, with sales in the domestic end market, which represent around 31% of group sales, up 10% compared with the prior year period. Marshalls said UK revenue since the half year is up 4% compared with 2015 and was particularly strong in the domestic end market, where sales in the five months to the end of November were 15% higher.