After oil giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC (LON:RDSA) saw its latest earnings slightly miss market expectations last week, despite a recent recovery in the oil price, blue chip peer BP PLC (LON:BP.) should please on Tuesday after its recent quarterly updates have proved a little disappointing.
Investors will be hoping that the oil giant’s fourth quarter replacement cost profit will improve on the previous quarter, while for the full-year overall the group should reverse the previous year’s losses as big write-downs should not feature again.
In a preview note analysts at Deutsche Bank said: “In the Upstream we expect EBIT of c$380m against a loss of c$400m in the year ago quarter with the improvement implying towards $400m of y-o-y cost savings (c$1.6bn annualised).”
Meanwhile, in their preview of BP’s results, analysts at the Share Centre noted: “Investors expect dividends to be maintained while going forward the view from management could become a bit more positive with the possibility of big oil companies once again thinking about expanding capital expenditure.”
Construction time ...
With the UK government set to publish its new housing strategy on Tuesday, housebuilders will be a focus, with mid cap Bellway PLC (LON:BWY) also set to continue that sector’s trading updates.
Analysts at Peel Hunt expect group trading at Bellway “to have been robust since the last update in December.”
In a preview note, the broker’s analysts said: “Pricing should have been firm and cancellations rates low. We will be looking for an update on the pace of any pick-up in land spend after the slowdown around the time of the Referendum.”
Meanwhile, property regeneration specialists St Modwen Properties (LON:SMP) should also reveal a robust performance with its full-year results.
In preview comment, Share Centre analysts said: “The group, which specialises in the regeneration of brownfield sites stated in December that its performance had been resilient in the face of market uncertainties and that it expected the second half to be broadly in line with that reported for the first half.
“So investors will be concentrating more on the group’s outlook for property and the effects so far of Brexit.”
Significant announcements expected on Tuesday:
Finals: BP PLC (LON:BP.), Plus 500 Holdings Limited (LON:PLUS), RM Plc (LON:RM.), St Modwen Properties (LON:SMP)
Interims: Mattioli Woods plc (LON:MTW)
Trading updates: Bellway PLC (LON:BWY), UDG Healthcare Group PLC (LON:UDG)