London open: Stocks nudge higher amid flurry of M&A activity
Stocks in London eked out gains in early trade amid a flurry of M&A activity, as investors looked ahead to a parliamentary vote on Brexit later in the day.
At 0825 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 0.2% to 7,360.00, with heavily-weighted mining stocks providing much of the upside.
There are no major UK data releases due, but market participants will be eyeing a vote in the House of Commons later, with MPs likely to overturn amendments made by the House of Lords relating to the rights of EU nationals living in the UK and parliament having a say on the final exit deal.
Spreadex's Connor Campbell said: "The Prime Minister is currently trying to remove the amendments voted for by the House of Lords – if successful the official Brexit starting gun could be fired as early as tomorrow."
"It’ll be interesting to see how much the pound reacts to the news if it is indeed activated on Tuesday: on one hand the currency knows it is coming; on the other, Britain is far from in the best place to begin negotiations."
On the corporate front, M&A news was in full swing. Housebuilder Bovis Homes surged as it said it was in merger talks with Galliford Try, after it rejected a £1bn offer from Redrow.
Meanwhile, shares in Amec Foster Wheeler rocketed as it agreed the terms of an all-share offer from oilfield services company Wood Group that values the engineer at around £2.2bn.
Under the terms of the deal, Amec shareholders will receive 0.75 new Wood Group shares for each of their shares. This represents a value of around 564p per Amec share and a premium of around 15.3% to the closing price of Amec's shares on Friday.
HSBC was in the black after saying it has hired ex-Prudential boss Mark Tucker to replace Douglas Flint as chairman after 22 years at the world's fourth largest bank.
Packaging company RPC Group edged higher as it completed the acquisition of Letica Group, a US plastics packaging manufacturer, for up to £511m in order to expand its reach in North America.
Allied Minds retreated as its co-founder and chief executive Chris Silva stepped down with immediate effect, to be replaced in the short term by non-executive director Jill Smith.
Saga was in the black after UBS upgraded the stock to 'buy' but Homeserve was hit by a downgrade to 'underperform' from Jefferies.
Standard Life was weaker after Berenberg cut the stock to 'hold', while Domino's Pizza fell after a downgrade by Citigroup.
On Thursday, the Bank of England's latest rate announcement is due, although no changes are expected, while the Fed is due to make its rate decision a day before amid expectations it will raise the funds rate by 25 basis points to between 0.75% and 1.00%.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at London Capital Group, said: "Although the Fed rate hike is priced in at 100%, the Fed watchers will be focused on the dot plot to catch any hints regarding the future of the Fed policy.
"The Fed could steepen the rate normalisation in 2017 and hike rates more than three times as anticipated until the beginning of March. The consensus shifts toward an overall 100 basis points hike via four actions in 2017."
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,360.00 0.23%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,044.62 0.44%
techMARK (TASX) 3,470.48 0.20%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Anglo American (AAL) 1,182.00p 3.64%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,273.50p 2.99%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 769.50p 2.87%
Glencore (GLEN) 318.95p 2.70%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 7,025.00p 2.63%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,394.00p 2.50%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,275.00p 2.45%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 676.70p 1.50%
Barratt Developments (BDEV) 543.50p 1.21%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 194.80p 1.19%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
BP (BP.) 463.70p -1.49%
Standard Life (SL.) 375.70p -1.13%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 242.90p -0.86%
Barclays (BARC) 230.15p -0.73%
Tesco (TSCO) 187.65p -0.61%
Pearson (PSON) 672.50p -0.59%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 737.80p -0.47%
WPP (WPP) 1,693.00p -0.47%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,200.50p -0.41%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,105.50p -0.38%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Amec Foster Wheeler (AMFW) 576.50p 17.85%
Bovis Homes Group (BVS) 898.00p 8.45%
Wood Group (John) (WG.) 802.00p 6.65%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 248.00p 4.20%
Hunting (HTG) 551.50p 2.80%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 810.00p 2.79%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 469.00p 2.72%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 243.80p 2.61%
National Express Group (NEX) 368.10p 2.39%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 938.00p 2.29%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Nostrum Oil & Gas (NOG) 480.00p -4.38%
Homeserve (HSV) 537.50p -4.02%
Domino's Pizza Group (DOM) 334.10p -3.61%
Indivior (INDV) 334.10p -3.05%
Sophos Group (SOPH) 274.90p -1.79%
Evraz (EVR) 209.30p -1.74%
GCP Infrastructure Investments Ltd (GCP) 127.40p -1.47%
Keller Group (KLR) 895.00p -1.05%
AA (AA.) 269.00p -0.92%
Allied Minds (ALM) 390.00p -0.86%