London pre-open: Stocks to rise as retail sales bounce back
London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday as investors mull the latest UK retail sales data.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 20 points higher at 7,557.
Figures released earlier by the Office for National Statistics showed that retail sales bounced back in January as shoppers hit the high street again. Retail sales rose 1.9% following a 4% slump December, when Omicron took its toll.
Darren Morgan, director of economic statistics at the ONS, said: "After a sluggish December where the omicron wave had a significant impact, retail sales rebounded in January with their biggest monthly rise since the shops reopened last spring.
"It was a good month for garden centres, department and household goods stores, with particularly strong trading for furniture and lighting.
"Food sales fell below their pre-pandemic level for the first time, though, as more people returned to eating out and there was also anecdotal evidence suggesting higher demand for takeaways and meal-subscription kits.
"Following a rise in high street footfall towards the end of the month, the proportion of online sales dropped to its lowest level since March 2020, while an increase in road traffic helped push fuel sales up from December."
In corporate news, NatWest Bank swung to a full year profit as it released more than £1.2bn in cash set aside for loan defaults during the Covid pandemic and said it expected to achieve a return on tangible equity "comfortably" above 10% in 2023.
The bank, majority owned by the UK taxpayer, posted a full-year attributable profit of £2.95bn compared with a £753m loss a year earlier. Fourth-quarter earnings came in at £434m against a loss of £109m in 2020, but lower than the £674m profit in the prior three months.
Real estate investment trust Segro hiked its full-year dividend as it said 2021 had been "a highly successful year" for the firm, with adjusted pre-tax profits and net asset value improving amid record levels of rental growth.
Segro hiked its full-year dividend by 10% to 24.3p as it posted a 20% jump in pre-tax profits to £356.0m, a 15% increase in adjusted earnings per share to 29.1p and a 40% improvement in its adjusted net asset value per share to 1,137.0p, driven by portfolio valuation growth of 29%.