London pre-open: Stocks seen higher after S&P upgrades Greece

Stocks are expected to open firmly higher on Wednesday morning after Standard & Poor's raised its credit rating for Greece by six notches. City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open up 18 points from yesterday's close of 5,936.Yesterday evening, S&P upgraded its rating for Greece from 'selective default' to 'B-minus', saying: "The upgrade reflects our view of the strong determination of Eurozone member states to preserve Greek membership."The outlook on the long-term rating is stable, balancing our view of the government's commitment to a fiscal and structural adjustment against the economic and political challenges of doing so."The minutes from the latest Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting are due out at 09:30 this morning, with markets waiting to hear the reasons behind the Bank of England's (BoE) decision to hold rates and quantitative easing (QE). The MPC voted on December 6th to maintain the official Bank Rate at 0.5% and its current asset purchase programme at £375bn. Investec analyst Victoria Clarke said: "Arguably the weak recent run of UK economic data edges the BoE in the direction of further policy easing at some point in the New Year, damping (at least domestically driven) inflation pressures and potentially implying inflation could drop back a touch more quickly in the medium term," Clarke said. "However, the more tricky question for the BoE right now, perhaps more so than its view of inflation's path, is whether the Bank is confident enough that QE would provide a sufficient boost to the economy overall, under current macro conditions." Markets will also be keeping their eyes on the German IFO business climate index this morning which is expected to rise from 101.4 to 102 in December. While the current assessment component of the survey is expected to slip slightly, the expectations index is forecast to rise."The German Ifo figure this morning is expected to show that businesses are more optimistic about the first half of next year than they have been in recent months," said market analyst Craig Erlam from Alpari. "While this is understandable given the progress that has been made in the euro area recently, the Bundesbank did claim that Germany could enter recession in Q1, which may push the figure lower than expected."Company newsHome improvement retail group Kingfisher has announced that its Chief Operating Officer (COO) Euan Sutherland is to leave the company next year to become head of The Co-operative Group after just a couple of months on the board.Sutherland, who has been working as a non-executive director of The Co-op's food business since 2010, will leave Kingfisher's board in March 2013 to take up the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) position at the diversified retail company.Berendsen, the FTSE 250 European textile maintenance company, said that trading continues to be in line with expectations and that it expects to report 'good' year-on-year progress for 2012.However, the company said that while underlying revenue is up 2% in the 11 months ended November 30th, the reported top line is "down slightly" owing to adverse currency movements. Oil and gas producer Salamander Energy has signed two new borrowing facilities together totalling 350m dollars. The facilities are designed to extend the maturity of the group's financing, simplify Salamander's borrowing structure and lower its cost of debt.BC