LONDON MARKET COMMENT: Stocks Seen Higher With HSBC Update Due

LONDON (Alliance News) - London share prices are set to open higher Tuesday, with the focus on a first-quarter update from HSBC Holdings due at 0915 BST, as the market returns from a long weekend after gains were made by European and US markets on Monday and with two days to go before the UK General Election.

"The FTSE 100 looks set to climb back above the 7,000 level this morning after some slightly underwhelming manufacturing PMI data yesterday from Germany, France, Italy and Spain," says CMC senior markets analyst Michael Hewson.

IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open 41 points higher at 7,026.3. The index closed higher on Friday, supported by a recovery in US stocks from losses suffered on Thursday.

Oanda analyst Craig Erlam believes this week is one of the biggest for the markets this year, with investors eyeing the UK General Election and Greek's deal progress with its European creditors.

"If investors weren?t already worried enough about whether Greece can come to an agreement with its creditors before it runs out of money, they now have to contend with the closest fought UK election in years and a very important US jobs report. This week could be hugely important for the markets," says Erlam. US non-farm payrolls is due on Friday.

"Greek negotiations are continuing this week and both sides will be hoping that a deal can be reached by the eurogroup meeting on 11 May, with Greece having to repay EUR763 million in loans to the IMF a day later," writes Erlam, adding the uncertainty of the UK General Election also will put the pound under a bit of pressure this week.

The DJIA and the S&P 500 ended up 0.3% Monday, while the Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.2%. Wall Street closed higher partly reflecting a positive reaction to the latest batch of US earnings news, with shares of Tyson Foods moving notably higher after the meat producer reported first quarter earnings that came in above analyst estimates.

In Asia on Tuesday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 is not trading until Thursday due to a holiday. Meanwhile, the Hang Seng trades down 1.3%, and the Shanghai Composite is trading down 2.5%.

In the corporate front, Glencore Tuesday said production grew year-on-year across all of its commodities in the first quarter of 2015, but some segments saw production fall from the previous quarter.

Aberdeen Asset Management said assets under management grew over the course of the second half of its financial year, as net outflows were more than offset by market movements and performance, while the group revealed plans to return surplus capital to shareholders. The asset manager said assets under management grew to GBP330.6 billion from GBP324.4 billion between September 30, 2014 and March 31, 2015.

FTSE 100-listed engineers Rolls-Royce Holdings and Weir Group have formed a joint venture to develop equipment designed to make drilling for oil using the "fracking" process more efficient, The Daily Telegraph reports. Rolls' MTU business, which makes large diesel engines, and staff at Weir, which produces pumps, which will on creating a combined engine, transmission and pump system.

Barclays is preparing to sell a GBP2 billion package of second-charge mortgages and loans made via its Firstplus brand, more than a decade after it first floated plans to dispose of the subsidiary, the Financial Times reported on Monday.

The bank has been in talks with a number of new banks, which the newspaper did not name, in recent weeks about selling the portfolio, according to sources close to the situation. The GBP2 billion business, acquired as part of the takeover of Woolwich in 2000, was moved to Barclays' non-core arm in May and has not issued any new loans for six years.

In the economic calendar Tuesday, eurozone producer prices are due at 1000 BST and the US Markit services PMI is due at 1445 BST.

By Daniel Ruiz; danielruiz@alliancenews.com

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