LONDON (Alliance News) - London stock indices are called to open lower Monday following the report of another contraction in the Chinese manufacturing sector.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open lower at 6,685.4. The index closed up 0.4% at 6,696.28 on Friday.
On Wall Street Friday, the DJIA closed down 0.3%, the S&P 500 ended down 0.2% and the Nasdaq Composite closed flat.
In Asia Monday, the Japanese Nikkei is down 0.2%, the Hang Seng trades down 1.0% and the Shanghai Composite down 2.8%.
China's manufacturing sector contracted further to a two-year low in July, due to renewed falls in total new work and new export orders, the latest survey from Caixin and Markit Economics showed.
The Caixin manufacturing purchasing managers' index, dropped to 47.8 in July from 49.4 in June. The latest data is below the flash score of 48.2 and signalled the sharpest deterioration in the health of the sector since July 2013. The latest reading was below the neutral 50.0 mark for the fifth straight month. A reading below 50 indicates contraction in the activity.
HSBC Holdings said that its pretax profit increased by 10% in the first half, as a strong showing in Asia more than offset a USD1.14 billion charge for settlements and provisions in connection to legal matters, and that it has agreed to sell its Brazilian operations to Banco Bradesco for USD5.2 billion.
HSBC reported a USD13.63 billion pretax profit for the six months to the end of June, up from the USD12.34 billion reported for the first half of 2014. HSBC's interim dividend remained at USD0.20 per share.
The results come nearly two months after the global banking giant revealed plans to save between USD4.5 billion and USD5.0 billion per year by 2017, cut risk-weighted assets by a quarter, and redeploy freed up capital to more profitable business, and sell its loss-making operations in Brazil and Turkey.
Also in the UK corporate calendar, there are half-year results from Intertek Group, Trinity Mirror, Esure Group, Keller Group, Fidessa Group, Ultra Electronic Holdings, and Telit Communications.
In the economic calendar, there are Markit manufacturing PMI readings from France at 0850 BST, Germany at 0855 BST, the eurozone at 0900 BST the UK at 0930 BST and the US at 1445 BST. There is also Institute for Supply Management manufacturing PMI at 1500 BST, alongside US construction spend.
By Neil Thakrar; neilthakrar@alliancenews.com; @NeilThakrar1
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