London pre-open: Small dip seen for stocks

Stocks were being called to start the session lower amid what were expected to be very thin trading volumes in the last full trading session of 2019.

FTSE 100 futures were slipping by 12.50 points to 7,574.0.

Commenting on the outlook for the week, Marshall Gittler at ACLS Global told clients: "Occasionally [the first trading week of the year] are the most volatile weeks of the year, probably because the market is so thin. As long as nothing untoward or unexpected happens, you’re probably safe spending your time a) partying and b) recovering from partying, but you might want to cover any open positions just in case.

No major economic reports were scheduled for release in the UK. However, on the other side of the Atlantic, investors were waiting on readings for foreign trade in November at 1330 GMT, MNI's regional Chicago Purchasing Managers' Index for December at 1445 GMT and the NAHB's Pending Home Sales index at 1500 GMT.

To take note of, at the weekend, US national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, reportedly said that North Korea may have reconsidered its threatened 'Christmas gift' to the US, which some observers believed would be a long-range missile test before the end of the year.

In other geopolitical news, overnight Pro-Russian separatists and Ukraine carried out a swap of 200 prisoners.

Drug giant scores new drug approval

AstraZeneca announced alongside MSD on Monday that Lynparza, or ‘olaparib’, has been approved in the United States for the maintenance treatment of adult patients with deleterious or suspected deleterious germline BRCA-mutated metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma, or pancreatic cancer, whose disease had not progressed on at least 16 weeks of a first-line platinum-based chemotherapy regimen. The FTSE 100 pharmaceuticals giant said the approval followed the recommendation from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee on 17 December for Lynparza in the indication, and was based on results from the pivotal phase 3 POLO trial.

Rio Tinto has started the process of resuming operations at Richards Bay Minerals (RBM) in South Africawhich, it announced on Monday. The move followed discussions led by the Premier of the province of KwaZulu-Natal, Sihle Zikalala, involving all stakeholders, which were focussed on “securing stability” in order to address the issues in the community, and provide a stable environment for RBM to resume operations. It said a phased restart was now in progress across the operation, with RBM expected to return to full operations in early January, leading to regular production in early 2020.