London pre-open: Stocks to drop after US tech selloff
London stocks were set to drop at the open on Tuesday following losses on Wall Street, where technology stocks took a beating amid antitrust concerns.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 20 points lower at 7,164.
London Capital Group analyst Jasper Lawler said: "The Nasdaq was hardest hit overnight with tech stocks and most notably the FAANG group plummeting amid concerns of US government antitrust probe of the tech giants. This comes following a myriad of controversies at the companies and amid growing calls for the companies to be broken up.
"Facebook dived 7.5% whilst Alphabet was down some 6%, Amazon and Apple also contributed to the sectors losses. The timing here is just really bad. Tech stocks are suffering heavily from the focus on the sector during the trade standoff. It is turning into a technology cold war. And now this from the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission. It's easy to see why investors are selling out. Any upside is looking very limited here."
The tech sector was hit after it emerged that US regulators are laying the groundwork for competition investigations into Facebook, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple amid concerns that the tech giants have too much power.
On the UK data front, Markit's construction PMI for May is due at 0930 BST.
In corporate news, low cost airline Wizz reported a 22.4% year on year rise in passengers for May as it continued to expand its network into Eastern Europe.
The carrier booked 3.47m passengers, compared with 2.83m in May 2018. The load factor rose 2 percentage points to 93.9%.
Wizz said it had opened up nine new routes, with seven to Poland and two to Ukraine as well as establishing its newest Polish base in Krakow with three A320 aircraft to be deployed in summer 2019.
888 Holdings said that increased marketing investment and the release of the its Orbit Casino platform have driven customer acquisition up by 20% and given rise to a 6% increase in like-for-like group revenues between the beginning of the calendar year and 18 May.
The online gambling company said it remains on track to meet full-year expectations as its "strong momentum" has been underpinned by growth from the sport and casino segments.