London pre-open: Stocks seen up on positive Asian cues

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Monday following solid gains in the Asian session. The FTSE 100 was called to open 42 points higher at 7,251.

Naeem Aslam, chief market analyst at Ava Trade, said: "The rally that began in the tech sector and lifted the stock indices out of their misery is helping the US and European stock futures today as well.

"Traders are starting the week with a lot of optimism, but at the same time, caution is also the name of the game as many are sceptical about the current rally, and they are wondering if the rally will last or if it is nothing more than just a dead cat bounce."

In corporate news, consumer goods and healthcare company PZ Cussons said it expected annual group revenue of around £590m with like-for-like growth of 3%.

The maker of Imperial Leather soap said growth was driven by price/mix as it maintained full-year profits guidance.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca said that Lynparza, its HER2-negative high-risk early breast cancer drug, has been recommended for marketing authorisation in the European Union after demonstrating "a statistically significant and clinically meaningful" improvement in invasive disease-free survival.

AstraZeneca said the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency made the recommendation based on positive results in the OlympiA Phase III trial on Lynparza, originally published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2021.