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LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London are set to open marginally higher on Friday, as the pound eases back after Thursday's slight rebound, but investors remain concerned about negative economic and political news.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 index to open 57.54 points higher at 7,326.50 on Friday. The index of London large-caps closed down 0.9% at 7,318.96 on Thursday.
Sterling was quoted at USD1.2924 early Friday, marginally off USD1.2934 at the London equities close on Thursday.
In UK early company news, British Airways customers were left having to cancel their credit cards after a 15-day data breach compromised around 380,000 card payments.
The airline admitted "criminal activity" had compromised the personal and financial details of customers who made bookings on its website or app from just before 11 pm on August 21 until 9:45 pm on Wednesday.
BA, part of International Consolidated Airlines Group, said it was investigating the vast breach "as a matter of urgency", while the UK National Crime Agency and National Cyber Security Centre are also assessing the hack.
The UK corporate calendar has annual results from emerging markets-focused investment manager Ashmore Group and a trading statement from pub operator Greene King.
"It’s been a difficult week for European markets with the DAX and FTSE 100 both hitting multi month lows this week as investors continued to lose confidence in the economic growth and earnings story, on a combination of rising risks surrounding further trade tariffs as well as turmoil in emerging markets," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.
"Deteriorating economic data has fed into these concerns, with the German manufacturing sector contracting for the second month in a row yesterday, a worry that could get added weight if today’s industrial production numbers for July are also poor," Hewson added.
According to BDO LLP, UK high street sales fell by 2.7% year-on-year – the worst August decline for three years, BDO's high street sales tracker said.
The report also said it was one of the worst Augusts seen since records started in 2006.
The fashion sector saw its worst August since 2015, with sales down in-store in every week of August. Homeware stores saw sales growth plummet by 6.1% year-on-year in August – the worst August for homeware since 2012.
In the US on Thursday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average ending up 0.1%, the S&P 500 down 0.4% and Nasdaq Composite closing 0.9% lower.
A Chinese Commerce Ministry spokesman said on Thursday that China will retaliate if US President Donald Trump goes ahead and enacts tariffs on USD200 billion worth of Chinese imports.
The US could decide to impose the tariffs, which would hit about 40% of the total amount of Chinese imports to the US, after a public comment period ends.
The Chinese government has threatened to counter the 25% duties with tariffs on USD60 billion worth of US imports to China.
The economic events calendar on Friday has German industrial production at 0700 BST, with the trade balance, exports and imports due at the same time. The same data is due from France at 0745 BST. In the UK are Halifax house prices at 0830 BST and consumer inflation expectations at 0930 BST.
In the eurozone, second quarter GDP is due at 1000 BST and headlining the economic calendar are nonfarm payrolls from the US at 1330 BST, with the unemployment rate and average hourly earnings all due at the same time.
In Asia on Friday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index is down 0.8%. In China, the Shanghai Composite is up 0.3%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.4%.
