European stocks set for a lower opening today- check out the FTSE 100

Yesterday all the major European stock markets closed higher and the gains were led by the DAX and the CAC 40, but more on those a little later. The FTSE 100 lagged those two indexes, but still closed higher on the day. The index gained 40.86 points, to close at 8,071 with a gain of 0.51% on the session. Yesterday evening the UK Chancellor, Rachel Reeves unveiled what most pundits expected; a radical change to UK public sector pensions investment. The prospect of grouping many of those local authority pension funds into a ‘mega’ fund in order to diversify investment away from stocks and Gilts is now live. So, if the UK government is to divest  a reported £80+ billion into alternative investments what implications does that have for the FTSE 100 and UK interest rates? Well, on the face of it that is a negative for stocks. The FTSE 100 is set to open lower this morning, but then again that seems more geared to the opening outlook for its European peers and the lower US closes last night.Time will tell, if these proposed pension measures will have a deeper impact in due course, but the markets may not wait around to find out. The FTSE 100 is right now priced to reopen at around 8,040