London pre-open: Stocks to rise as pound recovers from Brexit slump
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Friday 16 Nov 2018
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set for a positive open on Friday following gains on Wall Street, as investors continued to keep a close eye on Brexit developments.
The FTSE 100 was called to open 24 points higher at 7,062.
Brexit was likely to be in focus again amid reports that Environment Secretary and Leaver Michael Gove has turned down the role of Brexit Secretary.
Meanwhile, political uncertainty looked set to continue after hardline Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg submitted a letter of no-confidence in Theresa May as leader of the Tory Party, amid rumours that the number of letters submitted by Tory MPs to the 1922 Committee was nearing the 48 needed to trigger a vote of no confidence.
"If the 48 letter threshold is reached for a vote to be called then the matter will then probably go to a vote in the next few days, which would require Mrs May's opponents to get 159 MPs to vote against her in order to force her to step down," said CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
"Even if the Prime Minister were to win the vote it would need to be by a very wide margin for her not to be politically damaged in some way. In any case any new leader will face the very same problems that the current incumbent is now facing, which means that for all the sound and fury that is currently buffeting currency markets the ultimate calculus remains the same in that there is no majority in the House of Commons for a 'no deal' Brexit which means that MPs will try and coalesce around some form of alternative, assuming a general election can be avoided."
In currency markets, the pound was up 0.2% against the dollar at 1.2800, having suffered its worst day on Thursday since the October 2016 flash crash in the wake of a number of key cabinet resignations.
In corporate news, cigarette maker Imperial Brands said it was developing a version of electronic cigarettes that could be locked to prevent possible underage use, after a fresh US regulatory crackdown on vaping.
The announcement from FTSE 100-listed Imperial came a day after the US Food and Drug Administration announced new restrictions on flavoured e-cigs.
Safety and health technology group Halma said it had bought Navtech Radar for £21m on a cash- and debt-free basis, funded from Halma's existing facilities.
Further earn-out considerations, capped at £18m, are payable in cash, dependent on profit growth in each of the three financial years to the end of March 2021.
UK-based Navtech provides radar surveillance and safety solutions for use in highway monitoring, perimeter security and industrial applications.
AstraZeneca and its global biologics research and development arm MedImmune announced final overall survival results for the Phase III MYSTIC trial, which was a randomised, open-label, multi-centre, global trial of Imfinzi (durvalumab) monotherapy and the combination of Imfinzi and tremelimumab, an anti-CTLA4 antibody, versus standard-of-care platinum-based chemotherapy in previously-untreated patients with stage IV non-small cell lung cancer.
The drugmaker said that in the primary analysis population of patients, Imfinzi monotherapy and the combination of Imfinzi plus tremelimumab did not meet the primary endpoints of improving overall survival compared to standard-of-care chemotherapy.
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