FTSE 100 preview: Shares to follow Wall St higher
The FTSE 100 is seen opening higher on Friday, recovering after falls in the previous session following a late turn higher overnight on Wall Street and positive after-hours earnings news in the United States.
Friday feeling: Shares aim for a strong finish to the week.
The UK blue chip index closed 33.15 points, or 0.6% lower on Thursday at 5,222.95, retreating from a 56-week closing high set on Wednesday.
On Wall Street, the Dow industrials and the S&P 500 both climbed late on Thursday to 2009 closing highs, buoyed by energy stocks as crude jumped, but financials retreated after results from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs and with Bank of America Merrill Lynch to post numbers on Friday.
After-hours earnings news from US tech giants Google and IBM proved strong, outstripping already high expectations and providing further evidence that a recovery is brewing.
No domestic data is due for release on Friday so the main macro focus will be across the Atlantic this afternoon, with September industrial output and capital utilisation numbers followed by the preliminary reading for October's University of Michigan consumer sentiment.
BHP Billiton has launched a A$204m takeover offer for prospector United Minerals Corp, in a bid for more ground in the iron ore rich Pilbara district of west Australia, with the offer conditional on United dropping a deal to sell an 11.4% stake to China Railway Materials Commercial Corp Group.
Rio Tinto has scrapped its plan to build an aluminium smelter on the southern coast of South Africa due to power shortages in the country, it said in a statement on Thursday.
Barclays Capital is still owed billions in assets from bankrupt Lehman Brothers, whose US broker-dealer business it purchased last year, a Barclays lawyer told a federal judge on Thursday.
Centrica, the owner of British Gas, is weighing up plans to process cow manure and sewage slurry to produce biomethane that could be used to heat houses in Britain, The Times said.
Amec is extending into South Korea's energy sector after enhancing its credentials in the region by leading the construction of one of the world's largest bridges, the Financial Times said.
There will be updates today from Admiral Group, Bluebay Asset Management, Computacenter, Clinton Cards, Chrysalis Group and NCC.
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