London pre-open: Stocks seen lower ahead of data slew

London stocks were set to drop on Friday following solid gains in the previous session, as investors eyed a slew of key UK data releases.

The FTSE 100 was called to open 22 points lower at 7,263.

On the data front, second-quarter GDP, manufacturing and industrial production figures and the trade balance are all due at 0930 BST.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior market analyst at London Capital Group, said: "The British gross domestic product may have stalled in the second quarter, versus a 0.5% advance a quarter earlier. The yearly GDP growth may have slowed to 1.4% from 1.8% printed previously. Slowing growth in the UK would be no surprise to investors or to the Bank of England, which has revised its 2019/2020 growth forecasts significantly lower at its latest meeting due to increased no-deal Brexit risks.

"But a big miss in Britain’s GDP data could trigger fresh headwinds in the pound and bring the possibility of a decline toward the 1.20 level against the US dollar back in perspective."

In corporate news, second quarter like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs at advertising giant WPP fell 1.4% quarter on quarter, for a first-half decrease of 2%.

Reported billings were flat at £26.5bn, while revenue for the period was up 1.6% to £7.6bn as the company maintained full year guidance on like-for-like revenue less pass-through costs, which it expected to be 1.5% - 2.0% lower.

Reported pre-tax profits fell 44% to £478m driven primarily by a “significant” gain in 2018 that was not repeated and a charge on the revaluation of financial instruments versus a credit in 2018.

Security services firm G4S said it was planning to separate its cash solutions business as it reported a jump in interim adjusted profit before interest, tax and amortisation.

In the six months to the end of June, profit rose 1.7% to £234m on revenue of £3.75bn, up 4.7%.

AstraZeneca announced positive overall survival results from the phase 3 ‘FLAURA’ trial, a randomised, double-blinded, multi-centre trial of Tagrisso (osimertinib) in previously-untreated patients with locally-advanced or metastatic non-small cell lung cancer, whose tumours had epidermal growth factor receptor mutations.

The pharmaceuticals behemoth said Tagrisso showed a “statistically-significant” and “clinically-meaningful” improvement in overall survival - a secondary endpoint in the FLAURA phase 3 trial - compared with erlotinib or gefitinib, both of which were previous standard-of-care treatments in such a setting.