London pre-open: Stocks expected to surge after gains on Wall Street
UK stocks were expected to rise strongly again on Friday after an impressive performance on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones index registering its biggest one-day gain in three years.
British American Tobacco
2,310.00p
17:15 19/04/24
FTSE 100
7,895.85
16:59 19/04/24
FTSE 250
19,391.30
17:09 19/04/24
FTSE 350
4,341.08
17:09 19/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,296.41
17:08 19/04/24
Media
11,718.72
17:10 19/04/24
Serco Group
179.10p
16:34 19/04/24
Support Services
10,465.25
17:10 19/04/24
Tobacco
26,231.59
17:10 19/04/24
UBM
1,080.00p
16:44 15/06/18
City sources predict the FTSE 100 will open 70 points higher than Thursday’s close of 6,466. The UK index has now risen 4.3% over the past three sessions alone.
US markets surged on Thursday with the Dow ending 2.4%, or 421 points higher. The jump follows comments made on Wednesday by Federal Reserve chair Janet Yellen who said that policymakers “can be patient” when it comes to the first interest-rate hike.
Analyst Joshua Mahony from Alpari said the comments were “no doubt a reference to the need to hold off until the oil price and thus inflation rate stabilises”.
Stocks to watch
British American Tobacco (BAT) is to pay out $575m to settle a legacy litigation case with a company involved in the production and sale of asbestos-containing products in the 1980s. “Today's agreement in principle of the dividend claims and the asbestos related liabilities, brings this long running litigation to an end,” BAT said.
Support services group Serco said that police had ended their investigation into its contract to move prisoners from custody to courts without bringing charges against the company. Serco said the Crown Prosecution Service had accepted the City of London Police's view that there was no evidence to support charging the company or its staff over suspicions that it had been misleadingly recording prisoners as ready for court when they were not.
Marketing and communication group UBM has completed the acquisition of US-based VSS-AHC Consolidated Holdings for £599m. The group said that by purchasing the American firm, also known as Advanstar Communication, it has become the biggest event business in the US in terms of revenue. The company added that its trading and outlook for the full year remained in line with expectations.