London pre-open: Stocks set to jump early on, Tesco in focus

UK stocks were set to jump on Thursday morning, following a strong finish on Wall Street the previous session, after a slight rebound in oil prices and minutes of the latest Federal Reserve meeting.City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 70 points higher than Wednesday's close of 6,419.83.US stocks snapped a five-day losing streak on Wednesday, with the S&P 500 registering its first gain of the year, following a calmer session for currency and commodity markets.Crude prices gained - Brent recovered after briefly dipping below the $50-a-barrel mark - after data showed that US stockpiles unexpectedly shrank last week. Oil was holding on to gains on Thursday morning.Meanwhile, markets gave a largely neutral reaction to the minutes from the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting, which showed that officials would be patient over the first increase in interest rates. Minutes suggested that the first hike would not come before April.As for Thursday's session, investors will be focused on economic confidence data and retail sales figures in the Eurozone, a Bank of England rate decision and labour-market numbers in the States.US jobless claims will be closely watched ahead of the all-important US jobs report on Friday, which is expected to reveal that non-farm payrolls increased by 240,000 in December, compared with 321,000 in November. The unemployment rate is forecast to fall to 5.7% from 5.8%.Stocks to watchTesco has said it would cut costs substantially next year, close 43 unprofitable stores and lower prices, as chief executive Dave Lewis attempts to turn around the struggling supermarket chain. The news came as the company unveiled a "broad-based improvement" in UK trading with the like-for-like (LFL) sales decline easing to just 0.3% over Christmas.Sales of general merchandise and womenswear over the Christmas period at Marks and Spencer were significantly worse than had been expected by City analysts, falling 5.8% on a LFL basis. Blaming the unseasonal conditions in October and November, which hit the wider clothing sector, M&S online sales were also badly hit by December disruption at its Castle Donington e-commerce distribution centre.