London pre-open: Stocks seen higher on ECB euphoria
Fri 07 Sep 2012
LONDON (SHARECAST) - City sources reckon that the FTSE 100 will up around 12 points higher than yesterday's close of 5,777, with investors likely to focus on yesterday's decision by the European Central Bank (ECB).
Global stock markets soared after ECB President Mario Draghi announced that the bank would embark on its unlimited bond-buying plan: the Footsie jumped over 2%; the CAC in Paris and DAX in Frankfurt both rose 3%; while Wall Street benchmarks surged to their best levels in years.
"Yesterday’s actions by the ECB to commit to unlimited short dated bond buying, in the face of Bundesbank dissent look like they could well buy Europe some additional time to sort out the problems that have plagued the single currency for the last three years," said market analyst Michael Hewson from CMC Markets on Friday morning.
Company news was thin on the ground in London this morning, though there were some announcements on the FTSE 250.
Support services and construction group Interserve has been named as the preferred bidder to provide a range of services to National Health Service (NHS) trusts in the Midlands. The contract has a potential value of up to £300m and will run for seven years.
Defence contractor Cobham has been awarded a five-year contract to supply on-board inert gas generating system nitrogen inert units for AH-64 Apache helicopters used by the US arm. The "indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity" contract is worth around $15m.
Steve Crummett is to step down as Group Finance Director of Filtrona to be replaced with immediate effect by Matthew Gregory, currently the foam products supplier's director of Corporate Development. Gregory joined Filtrona in 2003 as Finance Director of the Moss Plastic Parts business. Before being appointed to his current role in 2010, he was Finance & Business Development Director of the Protection & Finishing Products division.
LONDON (SHARECAST) - City sources reckon that the FTSE 100 will up around 12 points higher than yesterday's close of 5,777, with investors likely to focus on yesterday's decision by the European Central Bank (ECB).
