21st Apr 2015 06:38
LONDON (Alliance News) - The FTSE 100 is expected to open higher Tuesday on a day light on significant economic data, but with some major UK and international companies providing earnings and business updates, including ARM Holdings, Sky and Rio Tinto.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open 12.9 points higher at 7,065.0, having been indicated lower earlier in the morning. The index closed up 0.8% at 7,052.13 on Monday following stimulus measures from the Chinese central bank on Sunday.
Wall Street also ended higher on Monday. The DJIA closed up 1.7%, the S&P 500 ended up 0.9%, and the Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.3%.
Asian stock markets have taken their lead from Wall Street to trade higher Tuesday. The Japanese Nikkei closed up 1.4%, the Hang Seng is up 2.0%, and the Shanghai Composite is up 0.9%.
However, in Europe, Greece's financing issues remain in the spotlight. On Monday, a number of media outlets reported that the Greek government ordered a mandatory transfer of cash reserves from pensions funds and other state bodies to its central bank, in a desperate bid to gather enough cash to remain solvent.
"The move by the government to effectively confiscate cash reserves from public sector purses throughout Greece is very worrying for two reasons, it reeks of desperation and gives the impression that they are not optimistic on a deal being reached on reforms," says Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda.
"It's believed that this extraordinary measure will raise just over EUR2 billion which will buy the government a little more time, but I don't know what it hopes to achieve," Erlam adds.
ARM Holdings reiterated it expects to "at least" meet current market expectations for dollar revenue in 2015, as it posted a rise in pretax profit in the first quarter of the year driven by strong growth in mobile chip demand. The chip designer posted a pretax profit of GBP103.4 million, up from GBP78.0 million in the first quarter of 2014, as revenue grew to GBP227.5 million from GBP186.7 million.
Sky posted a rise in operating profit for the first nine months of its financial year, as customer growth across its businesses and strong performances from the UK and Ireland and from Germany helped bolster revenue.
The broadcaster posted an operating profit of GBP10.3 billion in the nine months to the end of March, up from GBP854 million a year before, on revenue growth to GBP8.45 billion from GBP8.05 billion. In the UK and Ireland, revenue was up 6% to GBP5.82 billion from GBP5.49 billion, while revenue in Germany were up 9% to GBP1.04 billion from GBP951 million, offsetting a slight decline in Italy were revenue fell to GBP1.59 billion from GBP1.61 billion.
Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto reported that its global iron ore production for the first quarter grew 12% from last year, reflecting the expansion of its mining operations in the Pilbara region. However, iron-ore production declined 6% from the preceding fourth quarter.
Elsewhere in the UK corporate calendar, there are half-year results from Associated British Foods and a trading statement from Pets at Home Group.
In the economic calendar Tuesday, there are German and eurozone ZEW survey results at 1000 BST.
By Neil Thakrar; [email protected]; @NeilThakrar1
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
Related Shares:
SkyRio TintoAB FoodsPets at homeARM.L