London pre-open: Stocks seen muted ahead of long weekend

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set for a muted open on Thursday as we head towards the long Easter weekend, with traders wary ahead of the release of the US non-farm payrolls report on Friday. The FTSE 100 was called to open three points lower at 7,660.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "Tomorrow's non-farm payrolls report is the next catalyst for that narrative, although judging by recent weekly jobless claims data the US labour market still seems pretty solid.

"Today's claims are expected to show a modest rise to 200k from 198k, however, the market picture is unlikely to become any clearer until next week when US markets will get the first chance to react to tomorrow's payrolls report, as well as the March CPI report."

On home shores, data out earlier from Halifax showed that UK house prices increased for a third consecutive month in a row in March.

House prices rose by 0.8% from February, taking the average sale price to £287,880 in March.

However, this increase was slower than the 1.2% recorded in February. On an annual basis, the rate of price growth slowed to 1.6% from 2.1% recorded in the previous month and the lowest since October 2019.

In corporate news, Ferrexpo more than doubled iron ore pellet production in the first quarter, driven by an improvement in the supply of electricity to operations in Ukraine, which enabled the restart of a second pelletiser line in late February 2023.

Production for the three months to March was 0.90 million tonnes compared with 0.42 million tonnes in the prior quarter, but still 65% lower year on year.

"The group intends to continue to operate with between one and two pellet lines in the coming quarter, in line with 1Q 2023, assuming no further material changes to the operating environment and logistics availability in Ukraine," Ferrexpo said.