(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London are seen opening in positive territory on Tuesday, despite weak trading in the US and Japan overnight, with the latest unemployment numbers for the UK due before the market open.
Tuesday's economic calendar has UK jobs data out at 0700 BST, while German producer prices are set for release at the same time.
"With the UK economy slowly embarking on an unlocking process and business optimism showing significant signs of bullishness, hopes are rising that any further increases in unemployment will be limited in nature, and then start falling back," noted CMC Markets analyst Michael Hewson.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3996 early Tuesday, up from USD1.3984 at the London equities close Monday.
The euro was priced at USD1.2060 early Tuesday, firm from USD1.2029 late Monday. Against the Japanese yen, the dollar was quoted at JPY108.23, firm from JPY108.06.
IG futures indicate the FTSE 100 index is to open 4.72 points higher at 7,004.8. The blue-chip index closed down 19.45 points, or 0.3%, at 7,000.08 on Monday.
In the US on Monday, Wall Street ended lower, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.4%, S&P 500 down 0.5% and Nasdaq Composite down 1.0%.
"US markets also finished the day on the back foot, weighed down largely by weakness in tech stocks, which may well have been prompted by a large fall in Bitcoin over the weekend," Hewson said.
"Markets in Asia have continued the softer theme with the Nikkei 225 falling sharply, although this weakness doesn't look like it will translate too heavily into today's European open in a couple of hours' time," Hewson noted.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index was down 2.1% on Tuesday. In China, the Shanghai Composite and the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong were both up 0.3%. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed down 0.8%.
The People's Bank of China left interest rates unchanged again as expected, the central bank said on Tuesday.
The Chinese central bank has now kept its benchmark interest rate at the same level for the 12 months in a row.
The one-year loan prime rate was held at 3.85%, the last time the rate was changed was back in April 2020. The five-year rate also was unchanged at 4.65%.
The loan prime rate is a lending reference rate set monthly by 18 banks. The People's Bank of China revamped the mechanism to price loan prime rate in August 2019, loosely pegging it to the medium-term lending facility.
The medium lending facility was left unchanged last week at 2.95%.
Brent oil was quoted at USD67.72 a barrel Tuesday morning, up from USD66.79 late Monday in London. Gold was trading at USD1,771.11 an ounce, lower from USD1,773.63.
Tuesday's UK corporate calendar has half-year results from Primark clothing retailer owner Associated British Foods, first-quarter results from cybersecurity firm Avast, and full-year results from greeting cards retailer Card Factory.
Rio Tinto on Tuesday left its annual production guidance unchanged after a "solid" first-quarter.
The miner's Pilbara iron ore shipments rose 7% annually to 77.8 million tonnes in the first three months of the year. Pilbara output slipped 2% to 76.4 million tonnes, however.
"Labour resource availability and weather challenges disrupted maintenance. Tropical Cyclone Seroja impacted mine and port operations in April," Rio Tinto explained.
Bauxite output also was 2% lower, at 13.6 million, while production of mined copper was 9% lower year-on-year at 120,500 tonnes. For aluminium, production was 3% higher at 803,000 tonnes.
For the whole of 2021, Rio continues to expect Pilbara iron ore shipments of between 325 million and 340 million tonnes. Guidance for bauxite, aluminium and mined copper also was unchanged.
By Evelina Grecenko; evelinagrecenko@alliancenews.com
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