By the morning we’ll know the size of the rate hike by the US Federal Reserve, which will likely set the tone for the day.
That there will be a rise is taken as read, and – assuming the Fed does not perform a triple Salchow with accompanying back-flip – the focus will be on the Fed’s commentary in its post-meeting statement.
A hawkish tone could reignite the bull rally, suggested Lukman Otunuga, an analyst at forex trading platform operator FXTM.
The market will also be mulling over the results of the Dutch election early on Thursday morning, though given the country operates a proportional representation system it could be weeks or even months before a government is formed.
Closer to home, the big corporate news is likely to be provided by supermarket chain Sainsbury’s, which is releasing a fiscal fourth quarter trading update.
In the third quarter the group just about returned to year-on-year like-for-like (LFL) sales growth (excluding fuel) in its supermarket business, while recently-acquired Argos did its bit, posting LFL growth of 4%.
“We forecast that the core supermarkets business will deliver LFL sales growth of +0.3% for the 9 weeks to 11 March - compared with +0.1% in the preceding quarter. We expect the acquired Argos business to report LFL sales growth of +2.0% for the period - compared with +4.0% in the preceding quarter,” Barclays said.
Significant announcements expected
Interims: Sainsbury (J) PLC (LON:SBRY)
Finals: Balfour Beatty plc (LON:BBY), Capital Drilling Ltd (LON:CAPD), Miton Group PLC (LON:MGR), OneSavingsBank PLC (LON:OSB), Oxford Biomedica PLC (LON:OXB)