The FTSE 100 is expected to open just slightly higher on Tuesday morning following a 100-point loss the day before.
 
City sources predict the index will open up five points from yesterday's close of 6,247.

Stocks sank on Monday as political uncertainty in the Eurozone dented sentiment: corruption scandals at Prime Minister (PM) Mariano Rajoy's governing People's Party sent Spanish 10-year bond yields up 22 basis points; while rising support for former PM Silvio Berlusconi pushed Italian yields 14 basis points higher.

"We could now see a brief return to the risk on/risk off trading that we became accustomed to last year, said market analyst Craig Erlam from Alpair this morning.

"It appeared that we had moved away from this over the last month, with traders instead paying more attention to corporate earnings and the economic data, however this could only ever last as long as the eurozone remained stable."

Barclays puts aside more money to deal with mis-selling

UK banking group Barclays has put aside a further one billion pounds to cover compensation for mis-sold products in the fourth quarter, the company said on Tuesday morning. Ahead of the group's full-year results next week, Barclays has warned that it has increased its provision for redress relating to interest-rate hedging products wrongfully sold to small- and medium-sized enterprises by another £400m and is providing a further £600m for Payment Protection Insurance (PPI) claims.

Profits at oil titan BP slipped in the fourth quarter owing to lower upstream production levels, but the company assured that it well-positioned for growth after moving past "many milestones" last year. Underlying replacement cost (RC) profit, adjusted for non-operating items and fair value accounting effects, totalled $4.0bn in the last three months of 2012, down from $5.0bn a year earlier.

ARM Holdings on Tuesday reported a 16 per cent rise in profit before tax for the fourth quarter, boosted by demand for the company's processor technology for smartphones and tablet devices. Normalised pre-tax profits for the British semiconductor and software design firm came to £80m for the three months to December 2012, compared to £69m for the same period a year earlier.




BC

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