London pre-open: Stocks seen lower after Wall Street losses

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to fall at the open on Friday following a downbeat close on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 was called to open around 10 points lower.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "All major US indices advanced to fresh ATH yesterday; the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 traded at the uncharted territory, while the Dow Jones Industrial index hit the 40,000 mark for the first time - sparking the good, old discussions about 'how long did it take the Dow Jones to walk the last 10,000 points'.

"It took the index only 872 trading days to gain 10,000 points - the Federal Reserve's (Fed) aggressive policy tightening didn't have a long-lasting effect: that's the major takeaway for the future.

"But anyway, all three indices ended yesterday's session slightly lower than when they started -despite hitting a record during the session. Fed members insisted that the Fed's rate policy is in a good place right now, and that it will probably take longer for inflation to slow to the 2% target."

In UK corporate news, business park owner Sirius Real Estate said it had raised €59.9m through a bond note issue to fund a "significant pipeline" of potential acquisitions.

The issue was backed by a single unnamed international institutional investor which had approached the company "wishing to support our long term strategy", Sirius said.

"This tap Issuance follows our successful €165m equity raise last November and further demonstrates the continued appeal of our strategy, platform and portfolio to both credit and equity investors," said finance chief Chris Bowman.

Unilever announced the start of its share buyback programme worth up to €1.5bn, confirming an initial tranche of up to €850m in shares.

The consumer goods giant said the initial tranche would run to 30 August, in a bid to reduce its capital within the limits set by the general meeting on 1 May 2024. Goldman Sachs International had been instructed to conduct the first tranche independently of Unilever.