London pre-open: Stocks to start session slightly lower

Stocks are being called to start the day slight lower, with the Footsie down by about 20 points, ahead of what was being called to be a light day in terms of economic data releases.

Wall Street finished on a mixed note overnight, amid a large rise in crude futures and following downwardly revised global GDP forecasts from the International Monetary Fund.

To take note of, the president of the Federal Reserve bank of San Francisco, John Williams, on Tuesday evening reiterated his call for a Fed rate hike later in 2015, saying it still “made sense”.

Against that backdrop, on Wednesday morning the Bank of Japan’s monetary policy board voted to keep its main policy settings steady.

The board maintained its stance that "inflation expectations appear to be rising on the whole from a somewhat longer-term perspective”.

Market watchers also took note of the latest FX reserve figures out of the People’s Republic of China which revealed a further $43.3bn reduction for September to reach $3.514tn.

That, according to Deutsche Bank, was evidence of further “domestic currency support from the PBoC”.

AB Inbev sweetens bid for SAB Miller

AB InBev has submitted a third takeover offer to SABMiller for £42.15 per share. The company confirmed the move in a statement on Wednesday. It also revealed its previous offers for the brewing giant of £38 per share and £40 per share. “AB InBev is disappointed that the Board of SABMiller has rejected both of these prior approaches without any meaningful engagement,” it said. AB InBev said the revised proposal is designed to be compelling cash offer for SABMiller’s public shareholders and Altria Group and BevCo, who together hold approximately a 41% stake.

Supermarket retailer Tesco posted a 55% drop in first-half operating profit as it warned that the grocery market remained challenging. For the 26 weeks ended 29 August, operating profit before exceptional items fell to £354m from £779m, as revenue declined to £23.9bn from £24.3bn. Still, the figure was ahead of expectations, with analysts at Barclays estimating operating profit would come in at £320m. Pre-tax profit came in at £74m compared with a £19m loss in the first half of last year.