London pre-open: Weak start on the cards

UK shares looks set to start the session in the red after Wall Street fell following the latest Federal Reserve rate decision and stimulus update.The central bank said interest rates would stay low for some time, although it upgraded its estimate for the US economy and will continue to rein back some its stimulus measures.Futures prices indicate an initial fall of about 32 points for the FTSE 100. The Dow Jones peaked early yesterday and fell gradually through the session to end 10 points adrift.With just two weeks to go before the year end, oil and gas facilities service provider Wood Group believes 2009 earnings will be in line with expectations. It thanked a "robust" performance from its production support related businesses, with development related engineering activities, subsea and pipelines doing well. But it did warn that project delays in upstream and downstream have reduced volumes and margins. They should recover in the second half of the year. Rail and bus group Arriva is trading in line with expectations and says there is evidence of a recovery in passenger revenue growth in its UK trains division. Passenger revenue for CrossCountry rose 2.1% in the first 48 weeks of 2009, but was up 6.1% in the 13 weeks ended 12 December. But that "still falls well short of the level required to compensate for declining franchise support payments," the firm said. Bosses have "confidence in a positive medium-term outlook".Estate agent Savills expects its underlying performance for 2009 to be "significantly" ahead of previous forecasts, but it remains cautious about the sustainability of the current performance of UK residential and Asia Pacific transaction markets in 2010. In recent weeks, the group has seen continued strength in the Asia Pacific region, more transactions in the UK Commercial market, and a higher than expected level of transactions in the UK prime residential market.Construction and regeneration group Morgan Sindall is still on track to meet expectations for the current year. Its forward order book has eased to £3.2bn from £3.6bn at the end of June, although it is supplemented by over £900m of projects at preferred bidder stage, all of which have been awarded during the second half of this year.Car dealer Inchcape expects 2009's performance to be slightly ahead of forecasts. Total revenue for the first 11 months of 2009 was down 11.4% on a year ago in constant currency terms, while like for like revenue fell 15.6%. But the company has seen strong demand for new cars in the UK in the second half, and there are also signs of revival in the Hong Kong and Australian markets.Personal care products group McBride expects operating profit in the first half to exceed forecasts. First half revenues are expected to be ahead of last year, driven by continuing growth in the France and Italy household markets, and in personal care, as well as a favourable currency translation impact. Alistair Darling has been accused of concealing Treasury figures showing how deep Labour's planned spending cuts will be and where the axe would fall on public services, according to the Telegraph. The Chancellor, under pressure from MPs, admitted that "assumptions" had been made about spending levels but refused to agree to demands from a member of the powerful Treasury Select Committee to release them. Heathrow baggage handlers and Eurostar train drivers have said they were ready to join BA cabin crew and strike in the lead-up to Christmas, writes the FT. British drivers at Eurostar said they would go on strike on Friday and Saturday after talks with management over pay broke down. Aslef, one of the unions involved, said it expected "some inconvenience" for passengers, though the operator said it expected to run a full service using French and Belgian drivers.