Drinks behemoth Diageo (LON:DGE) reports interims on Thursday and analysts are confident worries the group foresaw over foreign exchange last year will have eased.
The globe's largest spirits business warned last year that it expected the effect of the strong UK pound against other currencies to knock annual profits by £150 million and it was hunting volume growth to offset exchange rate movements in emerging markets.
But Shore Capital reckons the weakening of sterling over several months and the prospect of a UK interest rate rise will have eased this impact.
Phil Carroll, analyst, said: "This set of results could be particularly interesting, in our view, as it could mark the end of the downgrade cycle for Diageo due to the benefit of an improving operational performance with potentially accelerating trading momentum and easing FX headwinds following the notable weakness in sterling of late."
He added that he thinks Diageo will say the performance in emerging markets will be still negative, but improved.
"This could be the nadir of the down-cycle for Diageo," he added.
The broker forecasts full-year earnings of £2.83 billion compared with £2.80bn last time.
In North America, sales are expected to rebound in the second half , said the broker, but "we should see or hear about improving depletion trends in the market, which should support improving investor sentiment".
In Europe, the broker expects conditions to remain quite subdued in Europe overall with Western Europe generally offsetting weakness in Eastern Europe and Russia in particular.
Africa is expected to deliver the strongest divisional growth in H1 with momentum continuing as management continues to leverage its mainstream spirits business through its beer distribution infrastructure, added the broker.
Investec, meanwhile, says it expects few surprises in the first half results and looks for signals that the changes taking place behind the scenes at Diageo will soon to translate into better operational results.
“We back management to build on improving execution in the US, while EM (emerging markets) should offer greater visibility on conclusion of the painful destocking process. Longer term, as global leader of the premiumising and aspirational driven international sprits industry, Diageo is well positioned to benefit from nascent EM penetration rates.
Investec rates the shares a ‘buy’ and lifts the target price to 2,230p from 2,100p.
Also this week, UK communications giant BT (LON:BT.A) and Sky (LON:SKY) update the market..
Elsewhere this week, investors will be looking for pork producer Cranswick (LON:CWK) to serve up something tasty in Tuesday's trading statement, after sizzling first half numbers last year.
Broker Numis describes those six month numbers in November as "superb", with management clearly confident of a good Christmas trading experience and citing then that the equivalent of 55,000 pigs per week was being processed.
The broker rates the shares 'hold' targeting 1,851p (current price; 1,895p).
In the first half revenue increased 9.9% to £529.1mln, slightly more than the company had expected. Adjusted profit before tax increased 22% to £31.5mln.
Analyst at Numis Charles Pick said the recent focus has been on like-for-like volume data, although pig meat prices have been more stable of late.
"A good Q3 l-f-l looks assured, aided by the expansion of Benson Park facilities," he says.
After Benson was acquired Cranswick oversaw the continuation of an existing programme to double capacity.
Numis describes the firm as a classy stock with a balance sheet that could easily facilitate more infill purchases, although upgrades after the H1 results have been reflected in the stock performance, notes the broker.
FTSE 250 firm Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL) mines diamonds and it has a trading update as well next week and Numis is expecting production of 1.65Mcts for the first half of its 2016 year, up marginally from 1.6Mcts in the same period of last year.
"We expect revenues of $162m, down 25% y-o-y. Sales are traditionally weaker in H1, due to the tender cycle with usually only 2 tenders in H1 (Sep-Oct, Nov-Dec) and 4 tenders in H2, however, no tenders were concluded in Q1 this year.
The broker rates shares a 'buy' with a target of 145p.
Last month, significantly, Petra and partner bought De Beers’ oldest working diamond mine for US$7.2mln, paying around US$3.6mln each for the Kimberley mines in South Africa.
The Kimberley operations produced 720,000 carats of diamonds last year and are expected to produce 700,000cts over the next three years, with annual revenue of US$65mln.
Petra will take a 49.9% stake while Ekapa, which will run the site, will own the rest.
It followed a pattern for Petra, which has bought up other De Beers spin-offs including the Finsch, Koffiefontein and Cullinan projects.
Significant announcements:
Monday
Interims PLC (LON: OPM), Finals Porvair PLC (LON: PRV), SThree PLC (LON:STHR), APC Technology Group PLC (LON: APC)
Tuesday
Interims PZ Cussons PLC (LON:PZC). Finals : Tern (LON:TERN), Crest Nicholson Holdings (LON: CRST)
Wednesday
Interims Wizz Air Holdings Plc (LON: WIZZ). Finals. Ediston Property Investment Company (LON: EPIC). Staffline Group (LON:STAF)
Thursday
Interims Diageo PLC (LON:DGE), CPL Resources PLC (LON:CPS), Renishaw PLC (LON:RSW)
Friday
Interims, Sky Plc (LON:SKY). Rank Group (The) PLC (LON:RNK), BT Group PLC (LON:BT.A), Final Result. Entu UK Plc (LON- ENTU)