London pre-open: Stocks to edge up ahead of jobs data

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to edge up at the open on Tuesday as investors eyed the release of key UK jobs data.
The FTSE 100 was called to open eight points higher at 7,336.

On the macro front, the ILO unemployment rate, claimant count and average earnings are all out at 0930 GMT.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: Last month the unemployment rate did tick higher from 3.8% to 3.9% with some concern that it might be well have bottomed out and start to edge higher again, after months of slowly declining. The surprise has been that with all the job losses that have been a feature of this year in retail this hasn't happened sooner, however it would appear that the UK labour market is more resilient than thought.

"Against this backdrop it's easy to forget that wages have been rising at near to 4% on a rolling three-month basis, while unemployment has remained down near 40-year lows. At a time when the debate over Brexit has poisoned the political discourse, this has been a welcome relief to hard pressed consumers, at a time when inflation has seen falls to below the Bank of England target rate. In terms of real incomes that has been a very positive story to tell.

"This morning's unemployment and wages numbers for the three months to September are expected to remain steady, with unemployment steady at 3.9%, with wages set to come in at 3.8%."

In corporate news, aerospace engineer Meggitt upgraded its full year revenue forecasts after a stronger than anticipated third quarter trading performance and despite being held back by the grounding of Boeing's 737MAX aircraft.

Third quarter revenue grew 11%, driven by all end market segments, particularly its defence unit. Full year revenue growth guidance was lifted to 6-7% from 4-6%.

Civil Aftermarket revenues grew by 4% in the third quarter, where Meggitt delivered "good growth in large jets against a backdrop of lower air traffic growth and ongoing delays in the delivery of initial provisioning spares for the 737MAX".

However, the company warned that its operating margin would be at the lower end of guidance due to the 737MAX and pressures across its internal and external supply chain driven by the "unprecedented ramp up in new aircraft production".

Vodafone reported a narrowed interim loss before tax of £511m, down from £2.8bn in the same period last year, as revenue grew by 0.4% to €21.9bn after its acquisition of Liberty Global's assets in Germany and Central & Eastern Europe.

Following improvements in trading in South Africa, Spain and Italy, the telecoms giant also hiked full year earnings guidance from €13.8-14.2bn to €14.8-€15.0bn.

DCC reported a "strong" first half performance, with group adjusted operating profit increasing by 14.5% to £162.6m, in line with its expectations.

The company said all divisions recorded good profit growth in the seasonally less significant first half of the year. At the same time, the sales, marketing and support services group announced that its DCC Health & Beauty Solutions division had acquired Ion Laboratories - a provider of contract manufacturing and related services to the growing health supplements and nutritional products market in the US - for consideration of around $60m (£46m).