London pre-open: Stocks to nudge up ahead of busy week of central bank announcements

London stocks were set to nudge up at the open on Monday at the start of a busy week that includes a slew of central bank policy announcements, including the Bank of England, Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve.

The FTSE 100 was called to open around five points higher.

By Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB, said: "Rarely is one man dominant for financial markets and for central banks, however, Donald Trump’s new economic policy means that he is centre stage as we wait to hear from a multitude of central bankers this week. Half of the G10 group of currencies have central bank meetings this week, including the Federal Reserve in the US, the Bank of England in the UK, the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank and the Swedish Riksbank. Elsewhere, South Africa, Brazil, Russia and China will also announce their latest interest rate decisions.

"The vast majority of central banks are expected to remain on hold. This week will be the first time that the world’s most important central bankers will collectively assess how President Trump’s trade policies will impact the global economy. We had a preview last week from ECB President Christine Lagarde, who said that there was a lot of uncertainty about the economic outlook, and that maintaining price stability in this ‘new era’ created by the US will be very hard for central bankers like herself.

"This cautious tone is likely to be copied elsewhere, and only the Bank of Brazil is expected to raise interest rates this week, while the SNB in Switzerland is expected to cut rates. Rates in Brazil are expected to rise to a full percentage point to 14.25% from 13.25%, after annual inflation surged to 8.78% YoY in February, up from 7.27% in January, tariffs could add even more upward pressure to price growth.

"The highlight of the week will undoubtedly be the Federal Reserve, which will announce its rate decision on Wednesday 19th March."

In UK corporate news, defence contractor QinetiQ said it would take a £140m impairment charge as tough market conditions persisted into the fourth quarter, hitting work in its UK intelligence and US sectors resulting in further delays to a number of contract awards.

It added that it had also identified a number of one-off, largely non-cash charges and provisions primarily relating to inventory and cost recovery in legacy US operations.

Around £25-30m is included in updated underlying profit guidance for the year end and around £35-40m would be reported through exceptional items.

AstraZeneca announced that it is spending up to $1bn to acquire Belgian biotech firm EsoBiotec, which it says has the potential to "transform" cell therapy.

EsoBiotec’s in vivo delivery platform, administered through IV injection, is able to deliver genetic instructions to the T cells, programming them to recognise and attack cancer cells directly.

The platform "empowers the immune system to attack cancers and could offer many more patients access to transformative cell therapy treatments delivered in just minutes rather than the current process which takes weeks", AstraZeneca said.