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FTSE preview: Shares up; Glencore floats

By Reuters
Updated: 02:54 EDT, 19 May 2011

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The FTSE 100 is seen opening up, extending the previous session's rally in tandem with gains overnight on Wall Street and in Asia, with commodity stocks helped by firm crude and metal prices.

Dealers monitor their screens on the trading floor of IG Index in London

Market watcher: Traders will eye new-boy Glencore.

The UK blue chip index closed 62.49 points, or 1.1% higher on Wednesday at 5,923.49, boosted by strong miners and energy stocks as commodity prices recovered after falls in the previous session on global growth concerns.

Technical analysis supported expectations for further gains on Thursday.

'Based on the main range of 6,103.73 to 5,858.00, expectations are for this index to retrace to at least 5,980.86 to 6,009.86 before meeting strong resistance,' said Enis Mehmet, analyst at Autochartist.

'A failure to rally through this area will mean the formation of another lower top which will be indicative of topping action,' Mehmet added.

Wall Street snapped a three-day losing streak on Wednesday thanks to the rebound in commodity prices and strong earnings from PC maker Dell, and Asian equities carried on the rally on Thursday.

On the macroeconomic front, April British retail sales numbers will be released with a monthly increase of 0.8% forecast, after a 0.2% rise in March, giving an annualised increase of 2.5%, up from 1.3% in March.

May's CBI industrial trends survey will be released later.

Investors will eye the latest US weekly jobless claims in the afternoon with an increase of 420,000 forecast, after a 434,000 rise in the previous week.

After that, April US existing home sales will be released, together with May's Philly Fed index, and April lead indicators.

Most Federal Reserve officials prefer to raise benchmark interest rates before selling assets when the time comes to tighten policy, minutes of their April meeting showed on Wednesday.

Glencore has priced its bumper $11bn IPO at 530p a share, in the middle of its initial range, balancing appetite for its shares with concerns from some investors over valuation, sources close to the deal said.

The stock starts 'when issued' trading on Thursday, and is set to join the FTSE 100 index.

Some investors are expected to vent their anger over Prudential's costly failed bid for rival AIA by opposing the reappointment of chairman Harvey McGrath at its annual general meeting on Thursday.

There will be results today from National Grid, Invensys, SABMiller, Investec, Marston's and Dairy Crest.

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