Stocks are being called to start the session higher ahead of the release of the monthly US non-farm payrolls report.
As of 0713 BST, futures on the FTSE 100 were adding 22.50 points to 7,073.50.
Consensus is for the jobs report, which is due out at 1330 BST, to show an increase in hiring from May’s 559,000 to 700,000 people in June.
Economists at Unicredit however are calling for a slightly larger jump in job creation, arguing that the “likely temporary” factors dragging on labour supply probably eased somewhat last month.
Some of those factors included fear of infection if workers returned to work, childcare constraints and enhanced unemployment benefits.
Overnight, the International Monetary Fund projected that the Federal Reserve, America’s central bank, would likely need to start hiking interest rates in late 2022 or early 2023.
The so-called ‘tapering’ of the Fed’s asset purchases meanwhile was seen kicking off in the front half of next year.
As an aside, also overnight, investors were cheered by news from America’s Johnson&Johnson that its Covid-19 vaccine was capable of neutralising the fast-spreading delta variant.
Data on US durable goods orders in May and foreign trade figures for that same month were also due out, at 1330 BST and 1500 BST, respectively.
No major economic reports are scheduled for release in the UK on Friday.
On the broker front, analysts at Berenberg have upgraded their recommendation for shares of Informa from ‘hold’ to ‘buy’.
Grafton completes purchase of Finland’s IKH
Building materials distributor and retailer Grafton Group has completed the acquisition of Isojoen Konehalli Oy and Jokapaikka Oy, or ‘IKH’, it announced on Friday. It said IKH is one of the largest workwear, personal protective equipment (PPE), tools, spare parts and accessories technical wholesalers and distributors in Finland.
QinetiQ Group on Friday said David Smith will be retiring as chief financial officer and stepping down from the board on November 30 to be replaced by Lightsource CFO Carol Borg. Smith joined Qinetiq in January 2017. Borg will start work on October 11 “to enable a smooth transition period”, the company said in a statement.
