FTSE seen opening lower

 

The FTSE 100 is seen opening 15-18 points lower on Wednesday tracking falls in Asia after a mixed showing overnight on Wall Street as worries about the pace of economic recovery were revived by weaker than expected U.S. consumer confidence data.

Financial bookmakers see the blue-chip index falling as much as 0.3 percent after it closed 9.23 points, or 0.2 percent higher at 5,200.97 the previous session, helped into positive territory by better than forecast results from oil major BP.

Investors will have a batch of key UK blue chip corporate earnings to digest on Wednesday, including numbers from drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline and energy firm BG Group .

The Nikkei 225 fell 1.4 percent on Wednesday while Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan fell 2 percent with investors unsettled by the weak U.S. data.

Financials will be under scrutiny as investors await further developments on regulatory change following moves across the Atlantic.

The Obama administration unveiled a landmark bill to tackle systemic risk in the economy and won congressional committee approval for a measure to expose hedge funds to more scrutiny.