London pre-open: Stocks to slide after heavy Wall St losses

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to slide at the open on Friday following heavy losses on Wall Street amid concerns about bad bank loans.

The FTSE 100 was called to open around 95 points lower.

Sentiment on Wall Street took a hit on Thursday and shares of regional banks tumbled after Zions Bancorp and Western Alliance said they had been victims of fraud on loans to funds that invest in distressed commercial mortgages.

Danske Bank said: "These developments have highlighted investor nervousness despite the S&P 500 Index remaining near record highs."

In UK corporate news, Pearson forecast a pick-up in fourth quarter sales, leaving the educational publisher on track to meet full-year guidance.

Updating on trading, Pearson said underlying sales had grown 4% in third quarter, helping lift revenues in the year-to-date by 2%.

Pearson said it had been a quarter of "good progress", with robust performances across all its businesses.

Looking ahead, it continued: "We expect group sales growth and adjusted operating profit in line with market expectations for 2025, with stronger sales growth in the fourth quarter."

Engineer Smiths Group said that it has agreed to sell Smiths Interconnect to Molex, a Koch company, for an enterprise value of £1.3bn.

Smiths said the sale, which is due to complete in the second half of fiscal 2026, is "a notable step forward" in the strategy to become a more focused industrial engineering company.

Insulation and building products group SIG reiterated its full-year outlook but reported no growth in underlying sales in the third quarter.

Like-for-like revenues were flat year-on-year over the three months to 30 September, following a 1.5% increase in the first half, as "subdued demand" persisted across the company's market, "with no material signs of market recoveries during the period".