(Sharecast News) - Stocks are set for a lower open following a no holds barred televised debate overnight between the contenders to the White House, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
"The first presidential debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden turned out to be rather messy, with the two candidates interrupting and verbally attacking each other with considerable vehemence," analysts at UniCredit said.
Against that backdrop, the FTSE 100 futures were trading down by 47.5 points to 5,823.5.
In parallel, futures tracking the US S&P 500 were falling 32 points to 3,301.75.
Overnight, China's official factory sector Purchasing Managers' Index printed at 51.5 for September, against 51.0 in August.
A separate PMI for private sector manufacturing companies however dipped from 53.1 to 53.0m, whereas the consensus had been for no change.
Commenting on those PMIs, analysts at Pantheon Macroeconomics said "Encouragingly, though, the demand picture is the sturdiest it has been for a while, with the new export orders rising above 50 for the first time since the end of China's lockdown.
"Nevertheless, it looks as though much of this month's production went straight into inventories."
On home shores, mortgage lender Nationwide reported a 0.9% month-on-month increase in UK home prices which took the annual rate of gains to 5.0% - the highest since September 2016.
And the Office for National Statistics bumped up its estimate for second quarter UK GDP growth from -20.4% to -19.8%.
Shell announces layoffs as part of transition to 'green' energy
Royal Dutch Shell said it was cutting 7,000 - 9,000 jobs globally as it responded to the global slump in oil prices and looked to reposition itself as a green energy provider. They would be implemented by 2022 and included 1,500 people who were taking voluntary redundancy, the company said in a trading update on Wednesday. "We have had to act quickly and decisively and make some very tough financial decisions to ensure we remained resilient, including cutting the dividend. But as hard as they were, they were entirely the appropriate choices to make," said chief executive Ben van Beurden.
Food services group Compass reported an improvement in fourth quarter revenues as schools reopened after the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, but warned a winter outbreak could hamper the pace of recovery. The company on Wednesday said full year revenues would be 19% lower year on year, after a 36% decline in the final three months of the fiscal year, compared to a 44% slump in the third quarter.
UK defence electronics and countermeasures specialist Chemring's US subsidiary, CCM, has secured a $49.9m five-year so-called indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity contract from the US Navy for MJU-32/38 infrared decoy flares. A first batch of the flares worth $11.3m was to be delivered in financial years 2021 and 2022, with all the associated work to be carried out at the firm's facility at Toone, Tennessee.
CCM was also awarded a $33.6m delivery order by the US Air Force for MJU-53/B countermeasures under the terms of a separate three-year $90m IDIQ contract signed in September 2019 with delivery by CCM also scheduled for 2021 and 2022.