20th Jun 2025 07:00
(Alliance News) - Stocks in London are set to open higher on Friday after the week's latest interest rate decision, with China's central bank opting to leave rates unchanged.
As expected, the People's Bank of China kept its one-year loan prime rate at 3.0%, while the five-year LPR remained at 3.5%.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has said he will decide whether to attack Iran within a fortnight, while UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy - after talks with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio - said there is still time to reach a diplomatic solution with Iran over its nuclear programme. Lammy will travel to Geneva on Friday for talks with the Iranian foreign minister and European allies.
IG says futures indicate the FTSE 100 to open up 35.1 points, 0.4%, on Friday. The index of London large-caps closed down 0.6% at 8,791.80 on Thursday.
Sterling was quoted at USD1.3496 early Friday, higher than USD1.3429 at the London equities close on Thursday.
Consumer confidence improved marginally in the UK in June despite the "dark shadow" of inflation and turmoil in the Middle East, figures show.
GfK's long-running consumer confidence index rose two points but remains firmly in negative territory at minus 18 in June, up from minus 20 in May.
Confidence in the general economy over the coming year rose five points, driving the improvement, but still remains at minus 28, 17 points worse than last June.
Meanwhile, in May, the UK job market saw "modest growth" in new postings, in a sign "more of hope than concern," according to the latest labour market tracker from the Recruitment & Employment Confederation and Lightcast.
The number of new job postings edged 0.3% higher to 726,084 in May compared to April.
However, the overall number of active job postings was 1.4 million, down 1.8% from April as older adverts rolled off websites.
The euro traded at USD1.1526 early Friday, higher than USD1.1468 late Thursday. Against the yen, the dollar was quoted lower at JPY145.47 versus JPY145.65.
In the US on Thursday, Wall Street ended mixed, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.1%, the S&P 500 down 1.85 points and the Nasdaq Composite up 0.1%.
In Asia on Friday, the Nikkei 225 index in Tokyo was marginally higher. In China, the Shanghai Composite was up 0.2%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong was up 1.0%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed down 0.3%.
Gold was quoted at USD3,346.95 an ounce early Friday, lower than USD3,368.94 on Thursday.
Brent oil was trading at USD76.75 a barrel early Friday, lower than USD78.59 late Thursday.
In Friday's corporate calendar, Accenture releases Q3 results.
In the economic calendar on Friday, the docket includes German producer inflation, UK public sector net borrowing, and the US Philadelphia Fed manufacturing index.
By Emma Curzon, Alliance News reporter
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