16th Apr 2015 06:34
LONDON (Alliance News) - London share prices are set to open higher Thursday, as a dearth of European economic data scheduled for the day turns the market focus to the US jobless claims figures due to be released at 1330 BST.
"After the disappointment of this week?s US data the latest weekly jobless claims are not expected to deviate too much from the steady consistency of the last few weeks despite the slowdown in the US manufacturing sector," says Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets UK.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open 8 points higher at 7,104.3. The index ended up 0.3% at 7,096.78 on Wednesday, having hit a new record intraday high of 7,111.72, led by miners and oil-related companies, as European Central Bank President Mario Draghi ruled out making an early exit from the bank's monetary stimulus measures.
With little in the way of economic data to chew over, the European markets also will look to the meeting between Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis with US President Barack Obama, due to take place after the European stock markets close.
"Unfortunately for Mr Varoufakis, sympathy is probably the only thing he will receive in the wake of yesterday?s S&P downgrade of Greece to CCC+ with a negative outlook, and last week?s meeting between Greek Prime Minister Tsipras and Russian President Vladimir Putin," writes Hewson.
Global ratings agency Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's credit rating on Wednesday and said the outlook for the debt-laden eurozone nation was "negative." Greece's credit, already in junk territory, was lowered from B- to CCC+ due to growing cash constraints on the government and banks.
"Without deep economic reform or further relief, we expect Greece's debt and other financial commitments will be unsustainable," S&P said in a statement.
Wall Street ended higher Wednesday. The DJIA closed up 0.4%, the S&P 500 ended up 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.7%.
In Asia on Thursday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 closed up 0.1%. Meanwhile, the Hang Seng trades up 0.2% and the Shanghai Composite is trading up 2.0%.
Brent crude is quoted at around USD63.03 a barrel Thursday, and US benchmark West Texas Intermediate is quoted at USD56.15 a barrel. Oil prices were given a boost Wednesday by the weekly report from the US Energy Information Administration, which showed US crude oil inventories increased by 1.294 million barrels in the week ended April 8, while analysts expected an increase of 4.057 million barrels.
In London Thursday, Brewing giant SABMiller said revenue rose 4% in its recently-ended financial year, after growth accelerated in the fourth quarter thanks partly to double-digit growth in Africa and a return to lager volume growth in China. The brewer of brands including Grolsch, Peroni, Coors Light and Bulmers cider said group net producer revenue for the year to end-March rose 4% and beverage volume growth was 1%, helped by an improvement in the fiscal fourth quarter when revenue grew 6% and lager volume grew 2%.
Unilever reported an increase in sales for the first quarter of 2015, helped by movements in currency and underlying sales growth, and said it is making a good start to the year. The retailer said revenue increased for its first quarter by 12% to EUR12.8 billion, which it said was helped by "favourable currency movements" and an improvement in underlying sales.
Supermarkets chain J Sainsbury is planning to convert the equivalent of around 40 supermarkets of shop space into non-food, The Daily Telegraph reported on Wednesday. Chief Financial Officer John Rogers said at an event at a south London store on Wednesday that the company has identified 1.5 million square feet of space across the UK, representing around 6% of its portfolio, that it no longer needs for food.
By Daniel Ruiz; [email protected]
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