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FTSE 100 preview: Oil leads shares higher

By Reuters
Updated: 02:41 EDT, 27 May 2011

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The FTSE 100 is seen opening up 46 points, or 0.8% on Friday, according to financial bookmakers, in tandem with a late turnaround overnight on Wall Street and gains in Asia.

Friday feeling: Shares head into the weekend on the up.

Heavyweight commodity issues are likely to lead the advance as metal and oil prices pushed higher in Asian trade on Friday, although trading is expected to be thin ahead of long holiday weekends in both the UK and the US.

The UK blue chip index closed up 10.9 points, or 0.2% on Thursday at 5,880.99, albeit well below the session peak of 5,910.77, as strength in heavyweight miners countered a turn down by banks on euro zone debt concerns.

US blue chips rose for a second day on Thursday after a choppy session, having been lower at London's close, with technology and consumer discretionary stocks leading the way after upbeat earnings.

Asian equities also pushed higher on Friday as market players picked up some bargains after recent falls, although Japan's Nikkei missed out, pulled down by a stronger yen and a drop by electronics giant Sony after results.

On the macroeconomic front, British consumer morale jumped the most in 18 years in May, helped by unusually warm spring weather and a run of public holidays, a survey showed on Friday.

The GfK NOP May consumer confidence barometer jumped to -21 from April's two-year low of -31, surprising economists who had forecast an unchanged reading.

The latest Nationwide British house price survey will be released, with an increase of 0.1% forecast for May, after a 0.2% decline in April, giving an annualised fall of 1.7%, after a 1.3% decline in the previous month.

Across the Atlantic, April US personal income and consumption numbers, one of the Federal Reserve's preferred measures of inflation, will be released.

The final reading for May's Reuters/University of Michigan consumer sentiment index will be released at, with April pending home sales due.

There will be results today from by Severn Trent, Tate & Lyle, Electrocomponents, Britvic, Armour Group and Bloomsbury Publishing.

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