Thursday 06 March 2014 2:39 am

What you need to know before the open

Europe’s set for a higher open this morning as investors await today’s European Central Bank (ECB) rate meeting.

Another weather-related miss for US services, and disappointing ADP payroll numbers didn’t appear to dent activity too much yesterday, and concerns over Ukraine have seemingly been put on the back burner for now.

Opinion is somewhat divided when it comes to the ECB as to whether it’ll act on rates, or try a different tool to try and up economic growth in the euro area. Consensus is that it’ll do nothing, as economic data continues to improve ever so slightly anyway.

Meanwhile, the Bank of England is expected to leave monetary policy as it is.

Corporate news

Vedanta has named mining heavyweight and former Rio Tinto head Tom Albanese as chief executive.

Insurer Aviva has reported encouraging set of results this morning, with operating profit up six per cent to £2bn. Chief Mark Wilson cautioned against complacency, though, saying there's still potential to unlock.

Betfair saw mobile revenue jump 68 per cent in the three months to the end of January, now representing 60 per cent of its Sportsbook revenue.

Not such good news for Balfour Beatty. The building group saw full-year pre-tax profit plummet to £32m in 2013, from £147m a year earlier.

It said challenging economic conditions and operational issues in UK construction, along with a “significant downturn” in the Australian natural resources sector were to blame.

And Aggreko has warned that negative currency swings could well impact results this year. It saw pre-tax profit fall eight per cent in 2013, to £338m. It says it expects trading profit to be similar to last year, on a constant currency basis.

In Asia

Japan’s Nikkei hit a five-week high in Thursday trading.

And a note from Standard and Poor’s has highlighted the concern that, as Chinese property developers increase their debt, making “aggressive land acquisitions” last year, the central bank’s moves to curb credit growth could see house buying wane. This would mean mortgage and developers’ funding is “seriously affected”.

Data in focus