This week’s focus will be on UK GDP and minutes from Bank of England’s latest interest rates meeting, which produced no change to the current 0.5% rate. The GDP data is expected to show a 0.4% growth for Q1.
On the corporate front, next week’s highlights will include final reports from retailer Tesco (LSE: TSCO) and oil and gas producer Cairn Energy (LSE: CNE).
On Tuesday and Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and Energy Information Administration (EIA) will release their weekly inventories reports to give the markets clues about the strength of energy demand in the US.
On Monday, Cairn Energy and security services group G4S (LSE: GFS) are set to release annual reports, on Tuesday, Associated British Foods (LSE: ABF) will report on its interims, Tesco will report its final results and fashion house Burberry (LSE: BRBY) and beverage group SABMiller (LSE: SAB) will release trading announcements. On Wednesday, video games retailer Game Group (LSE: GMG) will release its final results. On Thursday, pub operator Punch Taverns (LSE: PUB) and retailer W H Smith (LSE: SMWH) will release their interim results. Software developer Autonomy Corporation (LSE: AU) will reports its Q1 figures. No notable corporate data is due on Friday.
Next week’s economic updates will include US leading indicators and UK house prices from Rightmove (LSE: RMV) on Monday, Germany’s producer price index, EU balance of trade and UK consumer price and retail price indexes on Tuesday, US mortgage applications, Bank of England interest rate minutes, UK unemployment rate, average weekly earnings and mortgage lending data on Wednesday, US initial and continuing jobless claims, unemployment rate, producer price index and existing home sales and house prices, Germany’s PMI manufacturing data, UK index of services and retail sales on Thursday and US durable goods orders and preliminary UK GDP reading on Friday.