London pre-open: Stocks seen muted ahead of BoE

London stocks were set for a muted open on Thursday as investors eyed the latest policy announcement from the Bank of England.

The FTSE 100 was called to open just one point higher at 6,508.

CMC Markets David Madden said: "Equity markets in Asia have fallen on tighter liquidity conditions in China. Short-term borrowing costs in the country ticked up so that lead to fears the Beijing administration are trying to rein in credit, possibly to curb growth in property and stock prices. European indices are on track to open lower.

"The Bank of England (BoE) is expected to leave monetary policy on hold. The decision will be announced at 12pm (UK time), 30 minutes later the press conference will commence. It is predicted that all nine members of the MPC will vote to leave rates at 0.1% and the asset purchase scheme at £895 billion. In November, the BoE upped the stimulus package from £745 billion to £895 billion but a lot has changed since then, some developments have been negative, while others have been negative."

In corporate news, Royal Dutch Shell’s fourth-quarter adjusted earnings fell 87% to a worse-than-expected $393m year on year as the Covid pandemic hammered energy consumption.

On a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis, used as gauge of net earnings, the oil giant swung to a massive annual $19.9bn loss from a $15.2bn profit a year earlier. The total dividend fell 65% to 65 cents a share.

Unilever increased its fourth-quarter dividend as the consumer goods company reported a decline in annual profit caused mainly by currency swings.

The company raised the dividend by 4% to €0.4268 per share for the three months to the end of December from a year earlier. Underlying operating profit for the year fell 5.8% to €9.4bn (£8.3bn) as revenue dropped 2.4% to €50.7bn.

At constant exchange rates underling operating profit rose 0.7%. Underlying sales growth was 3.5% in the fourth quarter and 1.9% for the year.