Lloyds (LON:LLOY) gets the banking reporting ball rolling on Wednesday as it is the first of three of the 'big four' reporting this week.
It will be a third quarter trading statement, and if the numbers are received well it will give a boost to the forthcoming Lloyds £2bn share sale to the public as part of the plan to take it totally back into private ownership.
Investors will be scutinising the numbers, asking what they mean for the recovery in the banking world generally and the wider economy.
But it looks like the PPI (payment protection insurance) issue and its mis-selling may still haunt.
Reports today suggest, Lloyds is to set aside hundreds of millions more to compensate customers mis-sold loan insurance, on top of the £13.4bn bill it already expects to foot..
According to one Reuters poll, Lloyds is expected to report a pre-tax profit before one-off items of £2.2bn, unchanged from the year before.
Keith Bowman at broker Hargreaves Lansdown said last week: “Further broad progress is expected, underwritten by ongoing exposure to the recovering UK economy and group cost reduction.
Hopes that disappointment, following additional PPI provisions announced at its interim results, will not be repeated, persist, whilst the board’s previously stated intention to increase dividends over the medium term, will potentially be stressed again."
Hargreaves Lansdown has said the government’s Lloyds share sale has sparked a wave of interest among first-time investors.
The plan is to sell at least £2bn of shares to retail investors at a 5% discount to the market price as part of a bid to fully privatise the bank in coming months.
Some 170,000 have already registered their interest in taking part in the sale on Hargreaves’s website, with first-time investors making up 12.5%.
Also notable tomorrow is a trading statement from copper mining giant Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) and ciggies giant British American Tobacco (LON:BAT)
Significant announcements expected -
Final: Epistem Holdings (LON:EHP), Redefine International (LON:RDI)
Interim: Braemar Shipping Services (LON:BMS), C&C Group (LON:CCR), Gear4music Holdings (LON:G4M), GlaxoSmithKline (LON:GSK), JZ Capital Partners Ltd (LON:JZCP)
Trading statement: Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), British American Tobacco (LON:BATS), Lloyds Banking Group (LON:LLOY), Next (LON:NXT), Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL), Standard Life (LON:SL.), Telecity (LON:TCY)
US companies: Amgen; Anthem; Automatic Data Processing; AutoNation; Avery Dennison; Boston Scientific;
DENTSPLY International; Equinix; F5 Networks; FLIR Systems; Garmin Ltd; General Dynamics; Hershey; Hess; International Paper Co; Level 3 Communications; Lincoln National; Marriott International/MD; Mondelez International; Murphy Oil; National Oilwell Varco; Newmont Mining; NextEra Energy; Norfolk Southern;