London pre-open: Stocks seen muted as investors mull Fed minutes

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set for a muted open on Thursday as investors mull the latest minutes from the US Federal Reserve. The FTSE 100 was called to open unchanged at 7,522.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "European markets had a much more positive bias yesterday, helped by more resilience in the US, which finished the day strongly higher after the release of the latest Fed minutes.

"This positive finish took a bit of a knock after the close as another disappointing set of earnings numbers, this time from Nvidia prompted US futures to slide back, a touch, nonetheless it isn't expected to translate into too much of a headwind for today's European open.

"Asia markets are broadly mixed with European markets expected to see a modestly cautious open later this morning.

"These saw the Fed make a modest adjustment to estimates for 2022 PCE inflation, which were adjusted slightly higher to 4.3%, and then a steep fall to 2.5% in 2023, while at the same time officials discussed the prospect of more aggressive moves.

"What did last nights Fed minutes tell us that we didn't already know? The answer is not much, which is probably why there was little in the way of market reaction, with the Nasdaq 100 and S&P500 finishing the day higher.

"Markets have already become comfortable with the idea of further 50bps rate rises in June and July, with further rate rises to come, along with discussions about the prospect of moving rates beyond neutral to help constrain above target inflation. None of this is new, but it's also not particularly instructive given that not one FOMC member has the same measure of where the neutral rate actually is."

In corporate news, digital car sales platform Auto Trader almost doubled annual profits as more customers spent online making purchases.

The company reported a 91% rise in pre-tax earnings to £301m as revenue rose 65% year on year to £432.7m and 17% on 2020. Revenue in the prior year was impacted by the company's decision to give free advertising to retailer customers several times during the Covid pandemic.

Government contractor Serco said that better than expected trading and a "positive outlook" had led it to increase full-year guidance for both revenue and underlying trading profits.

Serco stated it now expects reported revenues of £4.3bn-£4.4bn for the full-year, as well as reported underlying trading profits of roughly £225.0m, significantly ahead of previous expectations for UTP of £195.0m set out at the time of its full-year results in February and approaching levels reported in 2021.