In mid-morning trading the FTSE 100 is little changed, as investors digest a slew of data.

Despite there being little change to the index there is still plenty for investors to get their teeth into. The main corporate news is full-year results from Barclays, coming in with a £6 billion profit, slightly ahead of expectations. This has pushed the bank share price towards the top of the blue-chip gainers and to its best levels in nearly five months. For now traders seem happy to sit tight in the expectation of more gains, with a run back to last summer’s highs of around 350p a popular target. The major economic news has been the latest UK inflation data – coming in at 4% there were no surprises here but it has knocked the pound back against the US dollar.

Looking ahead to the US open, at the moment we are expecting the Dow to open down around 15 points. It is a busy day on the US calendar today with retail sales for January just one of the announcements. While there is the potential for a choppy session, there is still nothing to suggest that the bullish appetite for equities is waning on Wall Street, so it would not be surprising to see further progress made by the major indices.