London pre-open: Stocks to slide after hawkish Fed minutes

London stocks were set to slide at the open on Thursday following hawkish Federal Reserve minutes.

The FTSE 100 was called to open 102 points lower at 7,415.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "The early performance of European markets so far this week, has been in contrast to weakness in Asia, as well as US markets, with last night’s US selloff being exacerbated by a sharply negative reaction to what has been perceived as some very hawkish Fed minutes.

"These minutes sent yields sharply higher, contributing to the US 10 year moving above 1.7% for the first time since last October, while the Nasdaq dropped by over 3%.

"Last night’s weakness in US markets, has seen Asia markets follow suit, and looks set to translate into a similarly negative European open this morning, as last night’s Fed fallout continues to reverberate."

In corporate news, clothing retailer Next lifted full year profits guidance and announced a special dividend after Christmas sales exceeded expectations driven by people buying more formalwear.

The company, which habitually under-promises and over-delivers, said full price sales in the two months to December 25 were up 20% compared with pre-pandemic 2019 - £70m ahead of previous guidance. It increased annual pre-tax profit guidance by £22m to £822m.

Next also forecast a 7% rise in full price sales for the year to January 2023 against the current fiscal year and a 4% increase in profit to at £860m.

The board declared a further special dividend of 160p per share to be paid at the end of January 2022 and said it intended to return to its pre-pandemic ordinary dividend cycle in the year ahead.

Bakery chain Greggs said that it had made "considerable progress" under "tough trading conditions" in the fourth quarter, putting the group in a "strong financial position" going into 2022.

Greggs said full-year sales were up 5.3% on the equivalent period in 2019 at £1.23bn, while in the fourth quarter two-year like-for-like sales in company-managed shops grew by 0.8%, with a strong performance in October being followed by more "challenging conditions" as consumers responded to precautionary messages relating to the Covid-19 omicron variant.

Separately, Greggs announced that Roisin Currie had been selected to take over from Roger Whiteside as chief executive following the group's annual general meeting in May.

Currie, who joined Greggs in 2010, currently holds the position of retail and property director, with responsibility for the firm's retail operations across the UK and its central support team.