No recommendation
No news or research item is a personal recommendation to deal. Hargreaves Lansdown may not share ShareCast's (powered by Digital Look) views.
Market latest
FTSE 100 | FTSE 250 | Paris CAC 40 | Dow Jones | NASDAQ
10444.49 |
140.61 (1.36%)
23279.93 |
309.29 (1.35%)
51053.82 |
205.07 (0.40%)
25815.01 |
5.35 (0.02%)
8325.44 |
124.64 (1.52%)
NaN |
0.00 (0.00%)
Prices delayed by at least 15 minutes
(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday following strong gains on Wall Street, after Donald Trump said a deal with Iran was close to being agreed, and as investors mulled the latest UK GDP data.
The FTSE 100 was called to open around 80 points higher. At 0725 BST, Brent crude was down 2.1% at $88.50 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate was off 1.9% at $86.03.
Sentiment was boosted after the US President called off further strikes on Iran and said a peace deal between the two countries could be signed in the coming days. Trump said on Thursday: "We just made a great settlement of the war with Iran, and we're going to be subject to finalisation of documents, which should get done over the next few days."
Trump said a signing ceremony could take place over the weekend, with the documents in a "pretty final shape". He also said the Strait of Hormuz "will officially open as soon as we sign, which could be soon, very soon".
His comments came just hours after the US President said on Truth Social that he would hit Iran "very hard tonight" and take Kharg Island at some point in the future.
On home shores, figures released by the Office for National Statistics showed the UK economy contracted 0.1% on the month in April, in line with expectations.
This followed growth of 0.3% in March and 0.4% in February. The ONS said the decline was driven by a 0.2% fall in services, which was partially offset by a 0.1% rise in construction. Production showed no growth in April.
In the three months to April, the economy grew 0.7%, following growth of 0.6% in the three months to March and 0.5% in the three months to February.
Investors will also be eyeing the SpaceX IPO. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote, noted that the company already made history on Thursday by selling 555.6 million shares priced at $135 each, raising the $75bn that it was looking for and giving it nearly the $1.8 trillion valuation that it was targeting.
"It equals the combined value of the 29 biggest IPOs in US history since 2000 - adjusted for inflation - including Meta, Google, Hilton, Airbnb, DoorDash, Uber, Snowflake and GM," she said. "Yes, it's huge. So today, everyone will be watching SpaceX leave the launchpad."
In UK corporate news, infrastructure group Kier said it had won an extension to continue delivering maintenance and improvements across South West Water's network over the next two years.
The framework extension has an indicative value of circa 140m and runs until March 2028, with Kier being the sole contractor appointed.
As part of the extension, Kier will continue to deliver repair and maintenance, leakage activity, network reliability schemes, metering and developer services.
GSK said that its JAK inhibitor momelotinib has been granted orphan drug designation by both the US Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency for the treatment of VEXAS syndrome, a rare and severe autoinflammatory condition with no approved therapies.
GSK said the designations were supported by retrospective case studies suggesting JAK inhibitors may offer clinical benefit, as well as a case report indicating improvements in symptoms, inflammation and haematological markers with momelotinib.