Friday 02 May 2014 3:18 am

What you need to know before the open

A mixed open's expected for European markets today, as investors come back from the May Day holiday and start digesting some of the key data from yesterday, along with what's out today.

European manufacturing data is predicted to show improvements for Italy, Spain and Germany, but numbers for France may well confirm the slide seen in the last estimates.

The UK's expected to show solid growth in the construction sector, with a very margin fall from 62.5 to 62.2.

Over in the US, we've got the employment report out later today. Investors will be looking for the strong growth needed to support the second quarter growth hoped for.

Corporate data

RBS saw pre-tax profit hit £1.64bn in the first quarter of this year – a 98 per cent increase from 2013.The bank's warned that restructuring costs are likely to be much higher for the rest of this year, though.

Pfizer's confirmed it's hiked its offer for AstraZeneca to £50 per share.

Barclays says the head of its Asia operations, Robert Morrice, is stepping down.

And InterContinental Hotels group says it's going to return $750m to shareholders as it reports upbeat first quarter results.

Key data