London pre-open: Stocks to nudge up but volumes seen thin ahead of Christmas

London stocks were set for a marginally firmer open on Thursday, with volumes likely to be thin as many traders are already away from their desks for the Christmas break.

The FTSE 100 was expected to open three points higher at 7,528.

On Wednesday, the House and the Senate passed a $1.5trn tax reform bill, sending it to President Trump for his signature.

The bill, which Trump hailed as a “historic victory for the American people", will see corporate tax cut to 21% from 35%, while income tax rates will be reduced across all seven individual tax brackets. It will give individuals and married couples who fall into the highest income bracket of $500,000 and over the largest tax cut, to 37% from 39.6%,

"I promised the American people a big, beautiful tax cut for Christmas. With final passage of this legislation, that is exactly what they are getting,” Trump said.

"The heart of our bill is a tremendous amount of relief for the middle class, including a doubling of the child tax credit and a nearly doubling of the standard deduction. That's going to be tremendous for people," he added.

CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "The long awaited US tax reforms were approved last night the reaction was relatively muted. The major US indices closed slightly lower on the session even though the House of Representatives voted 224 to 201 in favour passing the tax reforms. Donald Trump pledged tax cuts on his campaign trail to get to the White House, and now one of his major promises was been agreed upon less than one year into his premiership.

"US equities have been driving higher throughout 2017 as the prospect of substantial tax cuts was fuelling investor sentiment. The cooling of the US stock market when the vote on the tax cuts was passed suggests that traders are ‘buying the rumour and selling the fact’. If a major amount of money was already poured into equities in hope the tax cuts would stimulate the economy, some traders may start to wonder how much higher can they go?"

A survey released earlier by GfK showed consumer confidence in the UK fell to a four-year low in December as inflation took its toll. The GfK consumer confidence index dropped to -13, its lowest since December 2013, from -12 in November, missing expectations for it to remain unchanged.

There are no major UK data releases due, but in the US, the Philadelphia Fed manufacturing survey is at 1230 GMT, while initial jobless claims are at 1330 GMT and third-quarter gross domestic product is at 1330 GMT.

In corporate news, after President Donald Trump's tax reform bill was voted through overnight, Holiday Inn owner InterContinental Hotels was one of the first London-listed companies to emerge and quantify the impact on its finances. Based on initial estimates, the Republican tax reforms are expected to reduce IHG's group effective tax rate "by mid to high single digit percentage points" from 1 January 2018. For 2017, IHG's group effective tax rate is still expected to be in the low 30s.

Greencoat Renewables has agreed to buy the Dromadda More wind farm from Impax Asset Management for €88.4m funded by a €250m credit facility. Dromadda More is a 36MW windfarm in County Kerry, Ireland, and will be fully commissioned in March 2018 when the acquisition completes.

Babcock's longstanding board executive Bill Tame has announced his retirement from the defence contractor, where he us currently chief executive of 'global growth and operations'. Tame, who will depart at the end of June next year, joined what was a small cap group as finance director in 2001 and has seen it ascend to the FTSE 100.