Markets Overview: (Source: Bloomberg, FT, Reuters, DJ Newswires)

The UK 100 Index is called to open -2pts at 6875, having reached a record 15 year high yesterday of 6904.9pts. This happened after the shock announcement by the ECB to cut all benchmark rates by 10bps and to buy asset backed securities, including non-financial private assets and covered bonds to facilitate credit flow.

Standard Life (SL.L) was the best performer having been up over 10%, to finish up by 8% having reached all-times highs of 427.60p intraday. Overnight they announced following a sale of their Canadian business to Manulife for £2.2BN they would return a mammoth £1.75BN back to shareholders.

Breaking news in the late afternoon sent oil giant BP (BP.L) down by 6% as they were found guilty of gross negligence in the 2010 spills. Afterhours speculation mounted that they could be liable for additional fines totalling $18BN. The ruling is likely to push the final bill for the disaster well over the $43BN BP has currently accounted for.

Other notable losers yesterday were Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.L), falling as much as 6% as broker downgraded the stock and traders decided to continue to sell having digested results from the prior day.

In US trading during another volatile trading session, the Dow Jones made another intraday all-time high of 17,162.90pts before profit taking took place ahead of non-farm payrolls to send the index negative by 8pts to finish at 17,069.50pts. The Dow Jones had a trading range of 135pts yesterday and with jobs data released at 13:30 expect another volatile day.

Asian markets were broadly lower following their US peers with both profit taking and caution ahead of non-farms with traders sitting on the side-line. The Nikkei was down by 0.05%, the Hang Seng down 0.4% and the ASX the notable faller down 0.6% dragged by material stocks.

In commodities, gold fell to a 11-week low as the dollar strengthened cutting demand for the metal. With the dollar hitting highest levels since July 2013, gold traded as low as $1261. Silver followed suit to trade as low as $19.09. WTI fell by over 1.1% to $94.45 after a government report showed US refineries had reduced operating rates as demand slowed. Brent was down by 0.9% to end the session at $101.83 a barrel.

In focus today, all eyes will be looking at non-farms payrolls expected to show more than 200,000 jobs created again for a seventh straight month, and unemployment rate set to fall to 6.1%. With Ukraine and Russia set to continue ceasefire talks today any outcome could cause he swings in the equity markets.

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Key Overnight Macro Data: (Source: Reuters/DJ Newswires)

• AU          AIG Performance Of Construction Index                               Improved
• JP            Leading Index                                                                    Worse
• JP            Coincident Index                                                              Worse

See Live Macro Calendar for full data line-up, incl. consensus expectations

UK Company Headlines: (Source: Reuters/DJ Newswires)

• Gulfsands Petroleum says transfer of ADX Energy's stake in Chorbane permit approved
• Low & Bonar eases profit expectations on civil engineering slowdown
• Laura Ashley reports 15 pct jump in first-half profit
• John Menzies hires ex – Serco unit head as group CEO