Thursday is a day for the income investors, with utilities National Grid and United Utilities reporting, along with infrastructure investor HICL.
“Investors do not expect much in the way of excitement from utility company results, other than trading in line with expectations,” notes Sheridan Admans, investment research manager at The Share Centre.
He's referring to National Grid, but the same applies to United Utilities and, for that matter, HICL Infrastructure.
“Followers [of National Grid] will be looking at comments regarding organic growth and its confidence in providing sustainable dividend growth. Its operations in the US, which have been improving in recent updates, are another area for shareholders to focus on,” he added.
Analysts are expecting revenue of £15.05bn and pre-tax profit of £2.81bn, and a full-year dividend of 43.2p, up from 42.03p the previous year.
As for United Utilities, the teenage scribblers of the City have pencilled in revenue of £1.73bn, pre-tax profit of £418.9mln and a full-year dividend of 37.67p, up from 36.04p the year before.
There might be a bit more excitement with the results from
Royal Mail, where dire warnings of the former state-owned firm's ability to compete with competitors not saddled with the obligation to adhere to a universal pricing policy have proved overblown.
“Royal Mail’s outlook has improved considerably with Whistl’s suspension of delivery services, dramatically reducing the risk that a competing end-to-end (E2E) network is rolled out,” said Investec recently, as it upped its recommendation on Royal Mail to 'buy' from 'reduce' on the removal of another Royal Mail competitor in the UK.
The broker is forecasting revenue for the year to the end of March of £9.48bn and normalised profit before tax of £432.1mln.
Significant announcements expected
Interims
Daily Mail & General Trust (LON:DMGT), Local Shopping (LON:LSR), Shaftesbury (LON:SHB), SSP Group (LON:SSPG),
Finals
Assura Group (LON:AGR), HICL Infrastructure (LON:HICL), Dairy Crest (LON:DCG), Investec (LON:INVP), Lombard Risk (LON:LRM), National Grid (LON:NG.), Royal Mail (LON:RMG), United Utilities (LON:UU.), Young & Co’s Brewery (LON:YNGN)
Trading statements
Amlin (LON:AML), Coats Group (LON:COA), Darty (LON:DRTY), Inchcape (LON:INCH), Rank Group (LON:RNK)
The following widely-held companies are trading ex-dividend on Thursday: Michael Page International, Robert Walters, Taylor Wimpey, Ted Baker, Carnival, Bunzl, HSBC Holdings
Economic data
ECB account of monetary policy meeting, France, Spain, UK & US to sell bonds, UK retail sales