19th Jun 2015 05:57
LONDON (Alliance News) - UK shares are set to open higher, even though no agreement was reached on Thursday's talks between Greece and its international creditors held in the Eurogroup meeting.
"As expected yesterday?s Eurogroup finance ministers meeting yielded the outcome that most people thought it would and broke up with no new progress and quite a downbeat mood, amongst EU officials," says Michael Hewson, chief markets analyst at CMC Markets UK. "Greece?s finance minister [Yanis Varoufakis] did submit some new proposals, but they don?t appear to have been enough to satisfy EU creditors, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated the line of no reforms, no money."
Varoufakis said Thursday he has warned his eurozone counterparts that "we are dangerously close to a state of mind that accepts an accident" involving his country.
"I urged my colleagues not to fall prey to this state of mind," he said. "We can forge a good agreement. Our government is standing by with ideas and with a determination to cultivate the two forms of trust necessary to end this Greek drama - the trust of our partners...and the trust of our people."
As a result, eurozone leaders will hold an emergency summit on Monday to discuss the situation in Greece.
"It is time to urgently discuss the situation of Greece at the highest political level," EU President Donald Tusk said in a statement issued on Thursday evening.
Greece is seeking to access EUR7.2 billion remaining in its international bailout, but has been struggling for months to agree with its creditors on prerequisite economic reforms. Time is running short as the European part of the country's bailout is due to expire at the end of this month.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open 6 points higher at 6,713.30. The index closed up 0.4% at 6,707.88, boosted by a higher open on Wall Street after a mixed set of US inflation and jobless claims data.
Wall Street ended higher Thursday. The DJIA and the S&P 500 closed up 1.0% and the Nasdaq Composite finished up 1.3%.
In Asia on Friday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 trades up 1.0%, and the Hang Seng is up 0.9%. Meanwhile, the Shanghai Composite is trading down 3.7%.
In the UK corporate calendar Friday, N Brown issues a first-quarter trading statement, while Auto Trader Group releases full-year results.
In a light economic calendar, German producer prices are due at 0700 BST, eurozone current account is due at 0900 BST and UK public sector net borrowing is at 0930 BST.
By Daniel Ruiz; [email protected]
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