Today's top story: Day of the Mifids: Controversial EU regulations for the asset management industry finally kick in
Today's leader: Let 2018 be the year in which we stop labelling international students as immigrants
After all that excitement closing 2017 at a record high, and the expectation the good times would continue into the New Year, the FTSE 100 instead dipped yesterday.
But with Wall Street toasting the start of January with record highs, boosted by energy and tech sectors, London Capital Group is holding out on European stocks starting today more brightly.
It said energy and commodity sectors "should be in demand" after a jump in crude oil and metals prices. The ASX mining index notching up a five-year high "bodes well" for shares of the same miners listed in London.
LGC is expecting the FTSE to open unchanged at 7,648, adding that traders in FTSE 100 shares may be looking for the index to retest old highs at 7,600 before pushing on to new records.
Meanwhile, the Dax is expected to open up 37 points at 12,908 and the Cac up six points higher at 5,294.
Elsewhere in the world, most Southeast Asian stock markets rose, with the Philippines climbing over one per cent for a fresh record and Singapore shares nearing a three-week high. MSCI's index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan rose 0.1 per cent.
Corporate news
- Spotify – is facing a lawsuit accusing the streaming service of infringing on the rights of songwriters
- Moneygram – the US has stepped in to block the $1.2bn sale of the money transfer firm to China's Ant Financial
- Arcadis – the chief financial officer of the engineering firm has resigned to take up a role at AkzoNobel Speciality Chemicals
- Hyundai Heavy Industries – shares have soared after the announcement of its sales outlook for the year
Data
- 09:30 – UK PMI construction (December)
- 09:30 – Portuguese consumer and business confidence (December)
- 15:00 – US ISM manufacturing PMI (December)
- 15:00 – US ISM Prices paid (December)
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