London pre-open: Stocks seen lower ahead of ADP report

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to fall at the open on Thursday following mostly weaker US and Asian sessions. The FTSE 100 was called to open around 16 points lower.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "Today, eyes are on the ADP report. A consensus of analyst estimates on Bloomberg predict that the US economy may have added 144K private jobs last month, a certain rebound from the 122K printed a month earlier.

"A data in line with expectations, or ideally stronger-than-expected, could pour some cold water on the recession worries and keep indices stable into Friday's official jobs figures. A softer-than-expected figure on the other hand will likely fuel the recession worries and could further weigh on US treasury yields, the dollar and stock indices.

"Also on the watchlist, ISM services, weekly crude inventories and Broadcom earnings. I have said in yesterday's episode that Broadcom is also expected to reveal strong Q2 results after the bell. Their results are expected to be boosted by growing AI demand, a rebound in networking equipment services, and VMware's transition from perpetual sales to subscription model - which is also thought to have contributed to the revenue increase."

In UK corporate news, like‐for‐like sales at Primark were expected to fall by around 0.5% in the second half of the financial year, with a projected decline of 0.9% in the fourth quarter due to wet weather in the UK and Ireland which hit footfall and seasonal sales in womenswear and footwear, said parent company Associated British Foods.

Primark revenue growth is expected to be around 4% for the period, driven by a strong contribution from its continued store expansion programme.

The company added it was extending its £0.5bn share buyback by £100m after strong cash generation this year.

Elsewhere, housebuilder Vistry announced a further £130m share buyback as it posted a 7% increase in first-half pre-tax profit.

In the half year to 30 June, pre-tax profit rose to £186.2m from £174m in the same period a year earlier, with total completions up 9.1% to 7,792. Vistry hailed "good demand" across its Partner Funded markets.