London pre-open: London to follow Wall Street higher

Taking its lead from Wall Street, which brought its losing streak to an end yesterday, London is set to open firmer, with City traders tipping the Footsie will open around 34 points higher.Many of those traders will be attempting to decode the heavily detailed and caveat loaded interim results from Lloyds Banking. The headline items are a £3.2bn provision for potential claims relating to the mis-selling of payment protection insurance, and underlying profit before tax (excluding liability management and enhanced capital notes (ECN) effects totalling £851m) of £1,340m, up 36% from £988m in the first half of 2010.Andy Haste is to step down as chief executive of RSA Insurance, to be succeeded by Simon Lee, currently head of the insurer's international operations. The group announced profit before tax in the first six months of 2011 rose by a quarter to £376m, from £302m the year before. US payment services provider Fidelity National Information Services has pulled out of offer talks with application software provider Misys.