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UK stock market morning note (September 14, 2012)

The FTSE 100 is called to open higher this morning following the news of the Federal Reserve's actions to stimulate the US economy. The Fed will buy an extra USD40bn of mortgage backed securities each month whilst extending the average maturity of its asset holdings through to the rest of the year and to hold down interest rates until at least the middle of 2015. There is no domestic economic data due out today so attention will remain on the US with retail sales, inflation figures and the preliminary reading of consumer sentiment to be released at lunchtime and later in the afternoon. Commodity prices are higher on the back of the Fed's announcement with both the pound and euro strengthening against the dollar. However, the euro zone debt situation remains in the background with Greece and Spain likely to be the focus at the meeting of European Finance Ministers today.

Today's Company announcements

Royal Bank of Scotland Direct Line IPO. RBS has announced the IPO as part of its strategy to satisfy its State Aid obligations. This will see RBS sell some of its shares in Direct Line adding that the insurer will pay a final dividend for the 2012 financial year in Q2 of 2013. No new Direct Line Group shares will be issued.

JD Wetherspoon Preliminary Results saw PBT down 4.1% at GBP58.9m on revenue ahead 11.7% at GBP1.19bn and lfl sales up 3.2%. The dividend is maintained at 12p a share with it noting that sales this summer had been enhanced by a number of one-off events and did not expect to sustain this level of growth. It added that as previously highlighted, tax and input costs are anticipated to continue to rise but overall is 'aiming for a reasonable outcome in the current financial year'.