London pre-open: Stocks to nudge down ahead of services data, FOMC minutes

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to nudge lower at the open on Wednesday following a downbeat Asian session, as investors eyed the latest reading on the UK services sector and minutes from the Federal Reserve. The FTSE 100 was called to open five points lower at 7,514.

CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson said: "In the absence of US markets yesterday, European markets underwent a modestly negative session on a fairly quiet day, and look set to open modestly lower this morning, with Asia markets drifting lower.

"For the past few days, markets have been trading in a broadly sideways range with little in the way of momentum, as investors weigh up the direction of the next move over the next quarter."

He said tonight's FOMC minutes "may offer up further clues as to the Fed's thinking when it comes to why they think that two more rate hikes at the very least will be needed by the end of this year".

On home shores, the S&P Global CIPS services PMI for June is due at 0930 BST.

In corporate news, vehicle hire company Redde Northgate posted a strong rise in annual profit, driven by higher demand.

The company reported a 34.7% rise in pre-tax profit to £178.7m. Revenue grew by a fifth to £1.49bn and the full-year dividend was lifted by 3p a share to 24p.

"The group fleet is over 130,000 vehicles and multi-year insurer contracts are now at full run-rate. Together with our strong pipeline of new business including an additional large leasing company multi-service contract due to go live in the autumn, we are confident in continuing to deliver further stakeholder value," said chief executive Martin Ward.

"We continue to enjoy robust demand as we start FY2024 and our recent signing of a further multi-service outsourcing contract for Redde reflects our healthy new business pipeline."