Ofcom mulls BT break-up

City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 29 points higher than Wednesday’s close of 6753.57p.

Stocks to watch

UK communications regulator Ofcom has cited a break-up of BT as one of a range of possible measures to improve competitiveness in the digital communications market. The regulator said separating Openreach, BT's infrastructure division, from the main group "could deliver competition or wider benefits for end users" and "would remove BT’s underlying incentive to discriminate against competitors".

Dixons Carphone posted a 21% rise in pre-tax profit in its final results and said its integration was progressing well. For the 13 months to 2 May 2015, pre-tax profit came in at £381m from £316m last year, on revenue of £9.9bn, up 6% from 2014 on a like-for-like basis. The numbers were better than analysts had expected.

In the press

Senior officials in Brussels have said that European banks could have their capital requirements slashed, only six years after a financial crisis during which lenders collapsed or needed multi billion-pound state rescues because of their lack of an adequate loss buffer. According to the Financial Times, Lord Hill of Oareford, the European commissioner for financial stability, said that the commission would review the amount of capital held by lenders as part of a plan to encourage growth that some say has been stymied by the push to make banks safer.

A Brussels legal manoeuvre has dragged the UK into the Eurozone’s efforts to rescue Greece and complicated David Cameron’s attempt to renegotiate UK membership terms. Brussels has proposed using an EU-wide rescue fund to furnish Greece with the €7bn it needs to cover debt repayments on Monday, the Financial Times reported.

Sir Mike Rake is to step down as deputy chairman of Barclays this year to become chairman of Worldpay, the payments processing company, having last week orchestrated the sacking of the bank’s chief executive. His departure comes after Barclays said that he was the main instigator behind the ousting of Antony Jenkins and the appointment of chairman John McFarlane as interim chief, the Financial Times said.

US close

The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down three points to 18,050.17, while the S&P 500 lost two points and the Nasdaq and gained five points respectively.

Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen said an increase in short term interest rates is likely at some point this ear, and prospects for further improvement in the US labour market and economy more broadly were favourable.

In company news, Bank of America rose 3.21% after its second-quarter earnings and revenue beat expectations, while BlackRock climbed 1.10% after posting better-than-expected second-quarter earnings and revenue.