London pre-open: Stocks seen higher on French election relief

London stocks were set for a positive open on Monday after centrist and pro-European candidate Emanuel Macron won the French presidential election.

Macron beat far-right rival Marine Le Pen with just under 66% of the vote. With 98% counted, Macron had 20,429,650 votes for 65.8%, double Le Pen’s 10,608,109 votes for 34.2%.

The FTSE 100 was expected to open 31 points higher at 7,328.

With all eyes firmly on France, investors were set to largely shrug off uninspiring data from China, which showed exports rose 14.3% from the year before in yuan terms in April, following a 22.3% jump in March, while imports were up 18.6% compared to a 26.3% increase the month before.

Economists had expected a rise of 16.8% and 29.3%, respectively.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "While politicians in Europe let out a collective sigh of relief what the result can’t disguise is the level of voter dissatisfaction in France as a whole, given that nearly half the French electorate still voted for parties who ran on an anti-globalisation ticket.

"Knowing all of this the new French President may well find that winning was the easy bit. It’s all well and good running on a ticket of cutting 120,000 public sector jobs, a €60bn cut in public spending and a lowering of the unemployment rate to 7%, it will be another getting it through the French parliament.

"New elections for the French parliament take place in June and while he won the Presidential vote by a large margin, investors would do well to remember that was because of who he was up against. The parliamentary vote is likely to be another ball game entirely."

On the data front, Halifax house prices are due at 0830 BST.

Meanwhile, corporate news was thin on the ground.

British Gas owner Centrica said energy consumption has been lower than expected in the UK and North America so far in 2017 due to warmer than normal weather and that UK wholesale oil, gas and power prices have all fallen since it announced results in February.

But the FTSE 100 company insisted it remained on track to achieve the 2017 targets set out in its results announcement, including adjusted operating cash flow of at least £2bn.

Premier Foods said on Monday that it has signed 'heads of terms' for a strategic global partnership with Mondelēz International to renew its long-standing licence to produce and market Cadbury branded cake and ambient dessert products.

The new licence will run until 2022, with an option for the company to extend this to 2025.

Recoverable volumes at Hurricane Energy's Lancaster field are well over twice what was previously though, fresh estimates revealed.

A new competent person's report estimates that they stand 523.0m barrels of oil, 162% than previously thought. Its 2P reserves had an NPV of $525.0m at a discount rate of 10%, the new report indicated.