London pre-open: Stocks seen flat ahead of key speeches
London stocks were set for a muted open on Thursday as investors eyed key speeches from central bank officials.
The FTSE 100 was called to open unchanged at 7,629.
CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "Today’s European open looks set to be a mixed one as we look ahead to comments from the central bank holy trinity of Fed chair Jay Powell, ECB President Christine Lagarde and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey, who are all due to speak in Washington DC.
"Lagarde’s comments will be closely scrutinised after yesterday’s comments from Latvian Governing Council member Martin Kazaks said that a rate rise in July was possible, and that tightening measures needn’t have to wait for evidence of wages growth. Those comments were in contrast to the tone of Lagarde’s ECB press conference earlier this month, so it will be notable if she doesn’t push back on them."
In corporate news, pest control group Rentokil Initial said that 2022 had started well, with strong momentum from the prior year continuing into Q1.
Rentokil, which highlighted that it had seen progress across all business categories and regions, said ongoing revenue was up 1.8% at £721.6m, while organic growth, excluding disinfection, was 8.0% higher year-on-year. It also noted that input cost inflation had been entirely recovered by price increases.
Anglo American said first-quarter production fell 10% year on year, impacted by peak Covid-related absenteeism, high rainfall affecting operations in South Africa and Brazil, and safety and other operational challenges at metallurgical coal and iron ore operations.
As a result, the company said it was updating annual platinum group metals, iron ore and metallurgical coal volume guidance, and unit cost guidance for most product groups to reflect inflationary pressure on input prices, particularly diesel.