London pre-open: Early buying forecast

London is promising to shrug off last night's collapse on Wall Street to trade higher in the absence of traders in the US, closed for Independence Day on Friday.The Dow Jones slumped more than 200 points Thursday as the market reacted badly to awful jobs data. The FTSE 100 is seen up about 8 points early on.BHP Billiton has agreed to sell its Yabulu nickel refinery for an undisclosed sum after writing down its value by US$675m. The sale of the refinery in Queensland to Professor Clive Palmer, one of Australia's richest men, comes as the miner looks to scale down production of the metal. The write-down, which includes $175m of unrecoverable tax benefits, will be reported as an exceptional item in results for the year ended 30 June 2009.Engineer and construction contractor Balfour Beatty has traded in line with expectations since its previous update in May. It attributed the steadiness of the ship to continued infrastructure spending by customers, acquisitions and tight control of costs. Its order book is expected to be "broadly" in line with the £12.8bn reported at the end of 2008.Oil and gas firm Salamander has spudded the Phu Kheng-1 exploration well in Block L27/43, Northeast Thailand. The mean gross pre-drill estimate of prospective recoverable gas resources is about 1 trillion cubic feet. "Phu Kheng-1 has the potential to open up a new play in the Khorat basin," said chief executive James Menzies. Ireland's premier bank, Bank of Ireland, has warned it is facing a squeeze on profit margins in addition to the huge impairment charges it will take this year and next. "Demand for new lending remains muted and the lower interest rate environment together with the impact on deposit pricing of more intense competition has resulted in pressure on liability spreads," it said in a trading update. "This trend together with higher wholesale funding costs are having a significant negative impact on net interest margin." Like the rest of the financial sector in Ireland, the bank is suffering in one of the worst economic crises ever faced by the country. Today, it reiterated it expects impairment charges on loans of circa €6bn in the 3 year period to March 2011, including €1.4bn taken last year.Indoor five-a-side football firm Goals Soccer continues to trade in line with expectations despite severe snow in February, which reduced sales and profits by approximately £300,000 in the six months to June. The group said its core football product has remained resilient. Bar spend is showing early signs of improvement following the decline in the second half of 2008. European Islamic Investment Bank (EIIB), the Sharia compliant investment bank, responded to the recent surge in its share price and admitted that it had received approaches. "The board of EIIB notes the recent movement in its share price and announces that it has received a number of preliminary approaches from third parties," said the group EIIB's share price has surged 40% in the last two days. The group added that these preliminary approaches may not lead to an offer.