London pre-open: Stocks to start higher on slow day

Investors are expected to stay in a holding pattern in another light day for economic data on both sides of the Pond, brushing off overnight losses in Chinese stocks.

The top flight index is being called to start the day 14 points higher from Tuesday's closing mark of 6,345.13.

As of 07:25BST the Shanghai Stock Exchange's Composite Index was falling 2.98% to the 3,323.19 point mark, paring its gains for the month.

Acting as a backdrop, the latest data available revealed that Japanese exports grew by just 0.6% year-on-year in September (consensus: 3.8%), their worst showing in over a year.

That news appears to have rekindled talk of further monetary stimulus from the Bank of Japan.

"Japan is at risk of falling back into recession in the third quarter and today’s trade data did nothing to suggest that this would be avoided. The Asian market proved particularly troublesome for Japanese exporters in September, particularly China where exports fell 3.5% compared to last year," said Craig Erlam, Senior Market analyst at Oanda.

UK public sector borrowing data is the lone economic release scheduled for Wednesday.

In the evening, Mark Carney will deliver a speech in which he is expected to broach the potential implications of Brexit.

Stateside, the latest crop of corporate earnings on Tuesday was rather poor. Of the 20 S&P 500 companies to have reported yesterday, the majority of those beat analysts' estimates for earnings per share. However, only nine managed to beat forecasts for sales growth.

Thus far in the US earnings season, with 86 companies having reported, 74% have outpaced earnings forecasts but only 44% did the same with analysts' revenues estimates.

Pearson reports weakness in some of its major markets

Underlying sales fell 4% at Pearson in the third quarter and the education group has reduced its earnings guidance range for the full year by 5p to 70p-75p. The FTSE 100 group said some of its largest markets were weakened by "cyclical and policy related factors", in particular, including lower college enrolments in the US and lower textbook purchasing in certain South Africa provinces.

Chip designer ARM Holdings posted a jump in third-quarter pre-tax profit as revenue grew on the back of premium chip pricing and the broadening adoption of its technology, and said it has entered the final quarter of the year with strong royalty momentum. Third-quarter pre-tax profit rose 27% on a normalised basis from the same period last year to £128.4m, on revenue of £243.1m, up 24%. Processor royalty revenue was up 37% on the year, while processor licensing revenue rose 5%.

Sky has reported a strong first quarter book, with new paid-for subscription products boosting the company’s revenue. The FTSE 100 company posted its first quarter results to 30 September on Wednesday.The group posted quarterly revenue of £2.8bn, up 6% on the previous year.That contributed to a 10% increase in operating profit, up to £375m. The increase in revenue was driven by an extra 937,000 new paid-for subscription products, including an extra 133,000 new broadband subscribers, taking the total number of subscription products sold for the quarter to 54.7m.