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(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening lower on Friday, continuing to give back some of this week's rally, following losses on Wall Street on Thursday amid concerns over spiking coronavirus cases.
In early company news, opioid dependence treatment maker Indivior said it was "pleased" to put long-standing legal issues in the rear-view mirror. Construction company Galliford Try said it expects to return to profitability in the first half of its financial year and will resume dividend payments. Warehouse property investor Tritax Big Box REIT acquired a property occupied by Tesco for GBP44.2 million.
IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 43.54 points lower, 0.7%, at 6,295.40. The blue-chip index closed down 43.16 points, also 0.7%, at 6,338.94
Indivior said a US federal court in the Western District of Virginia has approved the agreement between the company and the US Department of Justice and other government agencies that was announced in July. The court has dismissed all charges that were returned by a grand jury in 2019.
Indivior in April of 2019 said a grand jury in the Western District of Virginia had issued an indictment of 28 felony counts against the company related to fraud.
Earlier this year, Indivior had said it would pay USD600 million to resolve criminal charges in the US related to its Suboxone film opioid dependence medication.
On Friday, Indivior said it was pleased to put this matter behind it and move forward in a manner that provides certainty to its business.
Galliford Try Holdings said that, since the start of its financial year in July, productivity is at near-normal levels and it is continuing to operate normally during the second national lockdown.
Galliford said it is performing in line with its expectations, with an excellent first half-year average month-end cash position towards the upper end of previous guidance of GBP125 million to GBP145 million. The construction company said it looks set to return to profitability in the first half of this financial year and a resumption of dividend payments alongside the interim results.
"The group's strategy is focused on robust risk management, sustainable growth, careful cash management and margin progression. The group is well capitalised with no debt, no pension liability, a portfolio of Public Private Partnerships assets, and a strong order book and is making good progress on its strategic priorities and the financial targets set out in September 2020, including expected reinstatement of dividend," Galliford said.
Tritax Big Box REIT said it has acquired a temperature-controlled distribution unit in a key South Coast location within the Nursling Industrial Estate in Southampton, for GBP44.2 million.
Tritax said the acquisition secures an attractive asset in a prime logistics location, providing critical cold-store capabilities close to a key UK port. Further, the company said the building is let to grocer Tesco and believes the site provides a range of opportunities to deliver near-term value through asset management.
"Benefiting from a strong existing tenant and a robust underlying occupational market, this building presents us with several attractive asset management opportunities which we expect will drive income and capital value growth. While the investment market for logistics assets continues to strengthen, there remain select attractive acquisition opportunities where significant value can be added through asset management," the company said.
Elsewhere, Morgan Stanley raised drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline to Equal Weight from Underweight and Goldman Sachs downgraded B&M European Value Retail to Neutral from Buy.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed down 0.5% on Friday. In China, the Shanghai Composite ended down 0.9%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is down 0.6%.
In the US on Thursday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended down 1.1%, S&P 500 down 1.0% and Nasdaq Composite down 0.7%.
Bars and restaurants in New York city will close early from Friday as the coronavirus outbreak surges across the US and Europe, where Greece is being forced into a nighttime curfew.
It comes as the US, already the world's hardest-hit country, experiences its third and worst-by-far spike in infections, and large parts of Europe shut down again to tackle the illness.
New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced that all establishments licensed to sell alcohol, including bars and restaurants, should close at 10pm.
On Thursday, America's third-biggest city, Chicago, issued a new stay-at-home advisory, with the mayor calling on its 2.7 million people to scrap Thanksgiving plans and avoid travel.
US Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday that it is "too soon to assess" the potential impact of a coronavirus vaccine on the economy in 2021, despite recent announcements that have stoked hopes.
"This is certainly good and welcome news for the medium term," Powell told a virtual conference organised by the European Central Bank.
However, "significant challenges and uncertainty remain about timing, production, distribution and the efficacy for different groups" of a vaccine, he added.
The appearance was Powell's first in public since US pharma firm Pfizer and Germany's BioNTech announced promising results in trials of their potential vaccine showing efficacy of around 90%, prompting a rapturous response on financial markets.
"As a consequence of last night's sharp US selloff markets here in Europe look set to open sharply lower, as the early week optimism of a vaccine gives way to the late week reality of surging hospitalisations, and rising death rates," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3142 early Friday, flat from USD1.3141 at the London equities close.
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson's most senior adviser Dominic Cummings is reportedly set to leave his Downing Street position by the end of the year.
Cummings told the BBC that "rumours of me threatening to resign are invented" after speculation that he would follow communications director Lee Cain in leaving Number 10.
However, he said that his "position hasn't changed since my January blog" when he wrote that he hoped to make himself "largely redundant" by the end of 2020.
The BBC also quoted a Downing Street source as saying Cummings would be "out of government" by Christmas.
The euro stood at USD1.1802, soft from USD1.1812. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY105.00, down from JPY105.13.
Brent oil was trading lower at USD42.95 a barrel, down sharply from USD44.03 at the London equities close Thursday. Gold was quoted at USD1,878.59 an ounce, flat from USD1,878.64.
The economic calendar for Friday has eurozone GDP readings at 1000 GMT. Then in the afternoon, a US PPI print is scheduled for 1330 GMT.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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