London pre-open: Solid start expected

With the major Far East markets closed today London might have been expected to lack direction in the early going but it looks as if the Footsie has decided to head higher, with City traders predicting a 20 point rise for the blue-chip index at the outset.All Bar One pubs owner Mitchells & Butlers appears to have enjoyed an Indian summer. In the nine weeks to 18 September the group saw like for like (LFL) sales improve by 3.6% on last year's levels. That was a sharp improvement on the 1.6% year on year advance in LFL sales seen in the first 42 weeks of the fiscal year, and took the LFL improvement over the 51 week period up to 2.0%; Numis Securities had predicted an improvement to 1.8%.The last major obstacle to the merger of British Airways and Iberia has been cleared after the Spanish airline backed BA's plan to tackle its huge pension deficit.Britain's biggest nightclub operator Luminar has eased investors' fears over the company's future with an announcement that trading in the half year to August 26 has been in line with expectations, if challenging. Mitchells & Butlers Bay Capital