The results schedule is heavy on the retailers, with Darty, Dixons, Dunelm set to report – and that’s just the retailers beginning with the letter D.
Fashion firm Next has a history of under-promising and under-delivering, but it has already reported better-than-expected half-year sales figures, so the cat is already halfway out of the bag.
Analysts expect interim profits to be up by around 5% to £342mln.
Struggling supermarket chain Morrisons announced a sale of a clutch of convenience stores on Wednesday, suggesting it does not want the sale to distract from Thursday’s interims.
It is not so much the profits the company will want the market to focus on – the consensus forecast is for a 30% fall in pre-tax profits to around £125mln – as the results of the strategic review by new chief executive, David Potts. .
“Evolution rather than revolution in the company’s strategy is broadly expected, with continuations of existing initiatives such as property disposals and the postponement of convenience store openings likely,” suggested Keith Bowman, at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Potts may have sanctioned the sale of 140 of its convenience stores, but he also said: “We remain open to other opportunities in convenience in the future,” so watch this space.
On the economic front, the September meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee will be immediately followed, as per the new arrangements, by the release of minutes from the meeting.
“Any change to the stance of monetary policy looks very unlikely this time and we seem to be little closer to a rise in official interest rates,” suggested Investec.
“August’s IR [inflation rate] was consistent with the Bank rate remaining at 0.5% for a while longer while recent uncertainties in China, if anything, could argue for a longer policy pause; however, our guess is that Ian McCafferty, who was the sole dissenting member in August, will once again vote for a 25bp [basis points] hike in the Bank rate to 0.75%," the broker added.
Significant announcements expected
Interims: Amiad Water Systems (LON:AFS), Cambridge Cognition (LON:COG), Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (LON:MW), Next (LON:NXT)
Finals: Dunelm Group (LON:DNLM), Ricardo (LON:RCDO)
Trading statement: Darty (LON:DRTY), Dixons Carphone (LON:DC.), Home Retail Group (LON:HOME).
The following widely-held stocks are trading ex-dividend: Admiral Group, BHP Billiton, Chesnara, Glencore, Land Securities, Restaurant Group, RSA Insurance, Standard Life.