London pre-open: Stocks seen slightly lower; Budget in focus

London stocks were set for a slightly weaker open on Monday following an uninspiring session in Asia, as investors looked ahead to the Budget this week.

The FTSE 100 was expected to open six points lower at 7,374.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "This week’s agenda is once again likely to be dominated by the Brexit negotiations, after reports that the UK government might be looking to submitting an improved 'divorce bill' offer to the EU in order to move things forward with respect to the beginning of discussions on trade talks.

"We will also be looking towards this week’s UK budget with the Chancellor Philip Hammond, despite all the fiscal 'doom and gloom', actually sitting in a better position than he could have anticipated at the beginning of the year with respect to borrowing, on course to come in at least £10bn under his fiscal target for this year."

Hewson added that government coalition talks in Germany are likely to weigh on sentiment as they appear to have collapsed completely, raising the prospect of new elections, as well as continued political uncertainty and deadlock in Europe’s largest economy.

In corporate news, British Gas owner Centrica will replace its standard variable tariff with new fixed-term tariffs as it called on the government, energy regulator and industry to make several to "create a market that works for everyone".

Costs of the government's social and environmental policy should be borne by all suppliers, energy policy costs should be paid via general taxation and the roll-out of smart meters needs to quickly be made more efficient, Centrica said, among seven measures it asked Ofgem and the government to make.

Tritax Big Box announced that it has exchanged contracts to acquire a logistics facility at Harlow Logistics Hub, Edinburgh Way, Harlow, let to Wincanton Holdings and Industrial Tool Services, for total consideration is £44.4m to be funded from equity. The company firm also announced that it has exchanged contracts to acquire two separate, modern logistics facilities from a single vendor for a combined purchase price of £43.86m, also funded from equity, in Nottinghamshire and Cumbria.

Eastern Europe-focussed low cost airline Wizz Air announced a massive expansion at its Luton base on Monday, with the addition of four Airbus A320 aircraft to its fleet there by June 2018. The company said the allocation of four more Airbus A320 aircraft, each equipped with 186 seats, would bring the total number of aircraft in its Luton fleet to five, with a combined value of $500m.