London pre-open: Stocks seen flat as investors await US sanctions on Iran

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set for flat open on Monday after the US said it would unveil the toughest ever sanctions on Iran and as investors eyed earnings from Nvidia and a hotly-anticipated speech by new Federal Reserve chair Kevin Warsh at the Jackson Hole Symposium later in the week.

The FTSE 100 was called to open unchanged at 10,816. At 0730 BST, Brent crude was down 1.6% at $92.85 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was 2% lower at $85.33 after US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the US will announce the toughest sanctions in history against Iran on Monday.

"At dawn begins an economic D-Day - the single greatest financial offensive ever marshaled against an adversary," Bessent said on X.

Looking ahead to the rest of the week, Nvidia results are due after the close on Wednesday and Kathleen Brooks, research director at XTB said: "The options market is already predicting a big swing in either direction on the back of these results, with options markets currently pricing in a 6% move."

On Friday, Kevin Warsh will deliver a speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium in Wyoming. TD Securities said Warsh's remarks are likely to be "evolutionary, not revolutionary".

"Warsh's options for his keynote address come down to two key topics: what he calls the 'big questions' and/or regime change at the Fed," it said. "Given Warsh's ideological reluctance to provide guidance, we do not expect the chair to change his approach toward discussing the outlook. If the market is looking for forward guidance from Warsh, it will likely come away disappointed.

"We believe the best way for the chair to reassert his inflation credibility would be to create distance between his long-held opinion on balance sheet policy and the spectre of it acting as a substitute for the Fed's interest rate tool.

"The chairman would also do well, in our view, to squash the growing idea that the Fed is set to completely rehash its strategy for bringing inflation back to the 2% target next year."

UK corporate news was scarce as the summer lull well and truly kicked in ahead of the Bank Holiday weekend.

Drugmaker GSK notched two major regulatory milestones, with Japan granting the first global approval for its hepatitis B therapy Hibsago and US regulators accepting a priority review for Jemperli in previously untreated locally advanced rectal cancer.

GSK said Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare had cleared Hibsago (bepirovirsen) as the world's first functionalcure treatment for chronic hepatitis B in adults who have received at least six months of nucleos(t)ide analogue therapy and meet specific viral criteria.

Separately, the US Food and Drug Administration accepted a priority review for a supplemental biologics licence application for GSK's Jemperli (dostarlimab) in mismatchrepairdeficient/microsatelliteinstabilityhigh stage II and III rectal cancer.