London pre-open: Stocks to gain as Johnson set to announce Brexit deal
London stocks were set to rise at the open on Thursday, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson expected to announce that the UK and the EU have reached a Brexit trade deal.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 35 points higher at 6,530 on what would normally be a very quiet half day’s trading on Christmas Eve.
Meanwhile, the pound was 0.6% against the dollar at 1.3570, having surged on Wednesday afternoon following reports that a trade deal was "imminent".
CMC Markets analyst David Madden said: "There has been talk in the last few hours that Prime Minister Johnson will make a speech at 11am (UK time) with regards to the trade situation - sterling is higher as optimism is in circulation. One report claimed that the EU will hold a press conference at 8am (UK time). The speculation is that a deal will be announced."
Unsurprisingly, there wasn’t much in the way of corporate news, but London-listed payments company Network International Holdings said it would publish in January a response to criticisms by Shadowfall Research over its $288m (£213m) acquisition of African business DPO Group and links to collapsed German fintech Wirecard.
"We take any critique of the company seriously. While we believe many of the issues raised have already been addressed, the historical nature of certain statements in the report means that a full response will take some time. Network expects to publish a response by the end of January 2021," the company said.