London stocks were set to kick the new year off in the black on Tuesday following an upbeat session on Wall Street.
The FTSE 100 was called to open up around 45 points at 7,430 after the Dow and the S&P both hit record highs overnight.
Oanda analyst Jeffrey Halley said: “You would be hard pushed to find a reason not to be in a jubilant mood as an investor as financial markets dished out the happy new year’s overnight, the first trading day of the year.
“I spent it on a series of almost empty flights on the trek to managed isolation in New Zealand, but for the rest of the world, the New York session finished with plenty of New Year’s goodies. Stocks finished higher, oil moved higher, the US Dollar moved higher, and US treasury yields moved higher. All signs that the US economy is starting the year in continuing recovery mode.”
Halley said that as more data comes in about Omicron, “it seems that yes, the virus variant is much more contagious, but it is not leading to a proportionally larger number of hospital admissions, the opposite in fact”.
In corporate news, Hungary-based budget airline Wizz Air said December capacity soared by almost 200% year-on-year, reflecting eased Covid-19 restrictions.
The company said it sold 3.5m seats. Passenger numbers were up 293% to 2.6m, while the load factor was up 19.3 percentage points to 75.4%.
