London pre-open: Stocks seen up after dovish Fed, ahead of BoE
London stocks were set to rise at the open on Thursday following a dovish statement from the US Federal Reserve.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 28 points higher at 6,790.
CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "Rates were kept on hold, meeting forecasts. The update was the best of both worlds as the Fed expects higher growth but at the same time, it doesn’t see the need to hike rates anytime soon. The economy is now projected to grow by 6.5% in 2021, up from the 4.2% forecast issued three months ago. Higher growth will come at a cost - higher inflation - but the Fed feels there will be a transitory increase above 2% but it will not justify a rate hike.
"The dovish nature of the update pushed down the US 10-year yield, which was north of 1.68% in advance of the announcement, it traded below 1.62% in the wake of the news but returned to the 1.66% area.
"Stock markets in the Far East were driven higher by the bullish moves seen on Wall Street, European indices are on track for a positive start."
On home shores, all eyes will be on the Bank of England’s policy announcement at 1200 GMT. It is widely expected to leave rates on hold at 0.1% and the asset purchase scheme at £895bn.
In corporate news, online food delivery firm Ocado said it expects positive revenue growth in the second quarter after reporting a 40% rise in revenue for the 13 weeks to the end of February as more Britons had their groceries delivered during the current national lockdown.
Revenue over the period, which included the Christmas holidays, came in at £599m, the company said.
Vodafone’s Vantage Towers business set the price for its initial public offering at €24 a share for a transaction that will value the mobile phone tower operator at €12.1bn.
The offer price is at the bottom of a €24-€25 range tightened on Tuesday from an original range of €22.50 to €29.
The company will place 95,833,334 shares resulting in gross proceeds to Vodafone of €2.3bn. The shares will start trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange on Thursday.