UK stocks are expected to open with small losses on Tuesday as markets digest a rate cut in Australia and comments by a member of the Federal Reserve last night.As expected, the Reserve Bank of Australia made a 25 basis-point reduction to its headline lending rate to 2.50% and said "the inflation outlook could provide some scope to ease policy further, should that be required to support demand".Senior Market Analyst Michael Hewson from CMC Markets said that for Asian equity markets, "the reactions [to the rate cut] were broadly muted, but with a slightly negative bias, and as such we can expect a broadly lower open for European equity markets". City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open down 14 points from yesterday's close of 6,620.Monday remarks by Richard Fisher, Head of the Dallas Fed, sparked a negative reaction on US benchmarks last night after he said that the fall in the unemployment rate in July from 7.6% to 7.4% moves the Fed closer to scaling back quantitative easing."I would say that the [Fed] is now closer to execution mode, pondering the right time to begin reducing its purchases, assuming there is no intervening reversal in economic momentum in coming months," he said. "I would have personally started dialling back some time ago."Stocks to watch Meggitt's pre-tax profit for the first half rose 7.0% to £182.4m pounds bolstered by the engineering company's strong performance in civil original equipment and energy markets. Revenue for the first six months of the year jumped 4.0% to £810.1m compared to a year ago while underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) increased 6.0% to £233.1m.Financial services group Legal & General hiked its interim dividend by 22% after a strong performance in the first half with double-digit growth in sales, cash, operating profits and profit after tax. The dividend was hiked to 2.4p per share, up from 1.96p per share in the first half of 2012.InterContinental Hotels said revenue per available room (RevPAR) rose 3.7% in the first half and, despite challenging economic conditions in some of its markets, it remains confident in future trading. Operating profit rose 20% to $338m in the half year June 30th 2013 while revenue increased 7% to $936m during the period.BC