London pre-open: Stocks to rise; Venezuela events in focus
By Michele Maatouk
Date: Monday 05 Jan 2026
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Monday, with the top-flight index breaching the 10,000 mark, as investors largely shrugged off the latest developments in Venezuela.
The FTSE 100 was called to open around 55 points higher.
Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, said: "Phew, the year started fast, giving us a rapid heads up that we might be heading into another geopolitically tense year.
"The US entered Venezuela and took Maduro out on Saturday. From a market perspective, what happened last Saturday in Venezuela means higher volatility in oil prices, risk premia creeping back into asset prices and markets being forced to react to political shockwaves as soon as many investors return to their desks. But overall feeling is way more relaxed than that.
"In oil, Brent crude opened the week above $61/bbl, while US crude tested $58/bbl offers before gains were quickly given back. Venezuela is known to have the largest oil reserves in the world - more than 300 bn barrels, even more than Saudi Arabia (around 267 bn barrels according to a chart published by Al Jazeera) - but its oil exports are far below major exporters like Saudi Arabia ($181 bn), the US ($125 bn) and Russia ($122 bn). In 2023, Venezuela exported just $4.5 bn worth of crude - a very little fraction of Saudi Arabia's $181 bn - due to aging refinery infrastructure, years of underinvestment, technical challenges and of course, sanctions.
"As a result, Venezuela pumps around 800K barrels per day - a third of what it used to a decade ago, and less than 1% of global supplies. In terms of supply risk, that's almost negligible, especially considering that the crude market is well supplied: the IEA projects a record oil surplus this year, while Trafigura warns of a potential 'super glut'.
"This explains why a potential supply shock in Venezuela is unlikely to reverse the bearish trend - particularly since the US did not touch any oil facilities during last weekend's operations and sanctions on Venezuelan oil remain in place."
In corporate news, budget airline Wizz Air reported a sharp jump in passenger traffic last month, with 5.85m people flying its routes, an increase of 15.5% year-on-year.
Capacity surged 16.3% in December to 6.81 million seats, while the load factor for the month was 85.9%, down 0.6 percentage points.
Elsewhere, Balfour Beatty announced the sale of ten UK assets from its infrastructure investments portfolio.
The disposed assets comprise three Offshore Transmission Owners (OFTOs), five street lighting projects, one biomass plant and one road concession.
The infrastructure firm said it sold its share in each of the assets to Equitix in December 2025 for combined proceeds of £87m, with a total gain on the disposals of £7m.
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