London pre-open: Stocks seen up after S&P 500 hits 5,000

(Sharecast News) - London stocks were set to rise at the open on Friday after the S&P 500 hit 5,000 for the first time on Wall Street. The FTSE 100 was called to open around 10 points higher.

Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, said: "The S&P 500 index shortly traded at the 5,000 psychological mark before closing a few points below this level. The rally is not only fuelled by rate cut expectations and AI speculation but is also backed - to some extent - by encouraging tech earnings from the stars of the league.

"Note that Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta generated nearly $140bn cash from their operations last quarter. That was the highest on record."

In UK corporate news, supermarket giant Tesco has sold its retail banking business to Barclays for £600m, the two companies said.

The duo also unveiled a 10-year partnership to market and distribute credit cards, unsecured personal loans and deposits using the Tesco brand, as well as explore other opportunities to offer financial services to Tesco customers.

Tesco said it expected to rake in a further £100m after the settlement of certain regulatory capital amounts and transaction costs. Combined with the previously announced special dividend of £250m paid by Tesco Bank last August, this is expected to result in total cash received of around £1bn, the majority of which will be returned to shareholders in the form of an incremental share buyback.

Polymers group Victrex announced a "soft start" in its first quarter as a result of continued end-market weakness and tough comparatives with the prior year, with group revenues falling by over a fifth.

Nevertheless, the company said the downturn in the three months to 31 December was in line with the wider chemicals sector, with chief executive Jakob Sigurdsson noting "signs of monthly run-rate improvement" in the second quarter.

Bellway said in a trading update that its half-year housing revenue topped £1.25bn, in line with expectations, as it completed 4,092 homes completed at an average selling price of £309,300.

Despite moderated build cost inflation, the housebuilder said its private reservation rate increased by 15.4%, reflecting improved customer demand, with plans to open over 40 new outlets in the second half, supported by net cash of £77m, down from £292.5m year-on-year.