FTSE 100 is set to open lower as investors await midterm elections and earnings from Walt Disney, Occidental and Bentley systems.

A look ahead at the market’s in Tuesday trading session market

The British index FTSE 100 is set to start lower on Tuesday as investors await the US midterm elections where the Republicans are most likely to take over.

“With the polls in the US pointing to the Republicans winning at least one of the US legislatures, which would be a catalyst for the political gridlock over the next two years and thus stymieing the ability of politicians to pass any legislation that could impact negatively on the business.” Said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC.

Nevertheless, this didn’t hold back the American markets from rising with all three indexes finishing yesterday’s session on positive gains.

In London, some results are due. Persimmon PLC trading report should show plenty of focus on sales rates so far in its second half. Particularly in October as it will be the first housebuilder to report on this period.

According to Shore Capital, Associated British Foods' full-year will be a mixture of soring expenses and a mix of cost-of-living problems balanced by a positive outlook statement.

Over in Asia, China’s numbers released yesterday showed its FX reserves surprisingly rose in October, but it is unlikely that Japan’s numbers, expected today, will be in any way similar.

The numbers are very likely to indicate a decline in official reserves, with investors hoping to see where Tokyo’s record $42.8 billion yen-buying currency market intervention last month generated from.  

Japan and China are the world’s top 2 FX reserves holders, and the way both manage their $4 trillion reserves has huge effects on world markets. Especially US Treasuries.

In corporate news, more earnings are due today:

• Walt Disney is set to report an EPS of $0.59 with revenue of $21.4 billion.
• Occidental is expected to report earnings of $2.68 a share on revenue of $9.4 billion.
• Bentley Systems is set to report an EPS of $0.2 on revenue of $272 million.

(Sources: investing.com, reuters.com, proactiveinvestors.com)