London pre-open: Stocks to edge lower after Trump threats

London stocks were set to edge down at the open on Wednesday, taking their cue from a weak Asian session amid renewed concerns about Sino-US trade relations.

The FTSE 100 was called to open six points lower at 7,317.

CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "Overnight, President Trump threatened to raise tariffs even further on China if a deal is not reached. Equity markets in Asia are in the red on account of the threat."

During a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump said: "If we don't make a deal with China, I'll just raise the tariffs even higher."

In UK corporate news, DIY group Kingfisher reported a "disappointing" 3.2% fall in third quarter sales in softer markets as the company's chief executive said it was suffering from “organisational complexity” that ignored customers.

Total sales fell to down 3.2% to £2.95bn on a constant currency basis. On a like-for-like basis the decrease was 3.7% reflecting continuing disruption from new range implementations, lower promotional activity and ongoing operational challenges in France.

"My early assessment is that we have not found the right balance between getting the benefits of group scale and staying close to local markets. We are suffering from organisational complexity, and we are trying to do too much at once with multiple large-scale initiatives running in parallel," said chief executive Thierry Garnier, who was brought in to turn the company's fortunes around.

"Altogether, this has brought disruption to sales and has distracted the business from focusing on customers. In addition, we faced softer market conditions in our main markets during the period."

Sage Group reported a 5.6% improvement in its organic total revenue for the year to £1.82bn, which it said reflected growth in recurring revenue of 10.8% underpinned by software subscription revenue growth, offset by a decline in SSRS revenue and a decline in processing revenue to.

The company said its organic operating profit was down 13% at £432m for the year ended 30 September, while its margin widened slightly to 23.7% from 23.4%.

An increase in its full-year dividend of 2.5% was declared, to 16.91p, in line with Sage’s policy of maintaining the dividend in real terms.