London pre-open: Stocks seen higher on positive Wall St cues
London stocks were set to edge higher at the open on Monday after the Nasdaq hit a fresh record high at the end of last week.
The FTSE 100 was called to open up nine points at 7,233.
On Friday, the Nasdaq hit a record high as US stocks rallied on the back of solid jobs data.
Jasper Lawler, market analyst at London Capital Group, said: "The impressive number of jobs created versus the weaker than forecast wages data meant that the strengths and weakness of the report whetted risk appetite perfectly. The economy is clearly booming but future inflation concerns have eased following January’s report, allowing the stock markets to charge higher.
"313k jobs were created in February, versus 205k forecast. Average wages grew 0.1%, lower than the forecast 0.2%, meanwhile unemployment remained at 4.1%.
"The non-farm payrolls was seen as the final obstacle for investors before jumping into equities after a volatile month. As a result, the Dow closed up 440 points, whilst the S&P 500 climbed 1.7%, both notably closing above their 50-day moving average. Meanwhile, the tech heavy Nasdaq charged 1.8% higher to close at a fresh record high."
There are no major UK data releases due on Monday.
On the corporate front, turnaround specialist Melrose Industries has upped its offer for engineer GKN to 467p per share, or £8.1bn from £7.4bn.
The "final" offer by Melrose would see GKN shareholders own 60% of the company and receive £1.4bn.
AstraZeneca has pushed back the expected completion of the Phase III 'Mystic' clinical trial of its Imfinzi immunotherapy treatment of non-small cell lung cancer.
Analysis of overall survival rates of the drug by Astra's MedImmune biologics arm will not be complete until the second half of 2018, having previously anticipated this would be done in the first half.
Petrofac has been awarded a lump-sum 27-month engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract by Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BCPL) valued at around $135m.
Located at BPCL's Kochi refinery in Kerala, India, the scope of work encompasses engineering, procurement, construction, pre-commissioning and assistance with commissioning. The contract is for the addition of a new Motor Sprit (MS) block of refining units, which will increase the current output of the facility to meet India's Bharat-Stage VI automotive fuel quality.