London pre-open: Choppy trading eyed on Friday as Greek talks set mood

Friday's session in London could follow the previous day's choppy course, with the mood likely to be determined by noises emanating from Greece's debt negotiations in Brussels.

Thursday had seen the FTSE 100 close up 7.59 points, or 0.11%, at 7,040.92 after swinging between gains and losses for most of the day, with trading volumes lower than average. Markets across Europe, however, finished firmly in the red after intraday gains.

On Friday traders expect the FTSE to open flat but with an "appetite to break higher", according to Michael van Dulken at Accendo.

Over the day there is likely to be more optimism from Greek officials and pessimism from the country's Brussels creditors ahead of a big weekend of negotiations, with a €300m IMF repayment on 5 June looming large.

"I’m sure we’ll hear plenty of noise regarding these negotiations today which could make for some rather volatile market conditions at times," said Craig Erlam at Oanda. "Barring a deal being done or collapsing altogether, I would be surprised to see any substantial moves either way as this could be seen to be quite risky ahead of an important weekend of negotiations and potential deal making."

There is certain amount of headline fatigue setting in, noted Michael Hewson at CMC: "You could copy and paste any headline from the last five years and see that not much has changed in the context of the debate about Greece’s finances."

The day ahead sees the revised reading of US first quarter GDP the only notable release at 13:30 with expectations for a contraction on the year. This is expected to be revised lower to -0.8% from the initial reading of 0.2%.

Smaller data prints include the Chicago PMI at 14:45 looking for a local improvement in May, University of Michigan Confidence also looking up. The Baker Hughes Rig Count rounds off the afternoon at 18:00.

Stocks to watch

US data centre company Equinix has agreed to acquire British peer TeleCity Group in bid that would create the largest data centre player in Europe. Telecity has agreed to terminate another merger it had agreed with Interxion on 9 March. The price agreed represents a value of approximately 1,145p per Telecity share and a value of approximately £2.35bn.

Synergy Health, whose shares have been tumbling in recent days over concerns its proposed takeover by US outfit Steris Corp will be blocked by US competition regulators, confirmed that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) had informed that it intends to seek to block the proposed merger. The two companies have now announce that they will contest the FTC's attempt to block their proposed combination. "Steris and Synergy welcome a full judicial review of the competitive effects of the combination."

Integrated support services company Carillion has acquired Outland Group - a provider of remote-site accommodation and associated services that operates across Canada - for £63m. Carillion chief executive Richard Howson said: “Acquiring Outland is another important strategic step in the development of our support services business in Canada.”