As the first week of September draws to a close, a relatively quiet Friday will be dominated by a trading update from FTSE 250 pub chain Greene King as investors look for any good news following a fairly dismal set of full-year results at the end of June.
Shareholders will be hoping for a boost from England's better than expected world cup performance over the summer, along with the long spell of hot weather which sent customers streaming into pubs and beer gardens. This was reflected in initial trading figures for the new financial year when the chain reported that like-for-like sales were up 2.2% in the Pub Company division, which managed to rack up record drink sales in May.
Meanwhile, there will also be numbers coming from FTSE 250 emerging markets investment firm Ashmore group when it releases its full year results.
Analysts at City broker Peel Hunt are expecting the firm to report "good growth in underlying profitability" despite weak sentiment in the sector following currency turmoil in Turkey. The broker added that despite a forecast of lower performance fees, they expected higher net management fees due to "strong growth in [assets under managemet] over the last 12 months".
There will also be eyes on another set of house price data from both Halifax and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), to see if the dismal growth rate published by Nationwide last Friday is correlated.
The Nationwide house price index, published at the end of last week, showed that UK house prices grew at their joint slowest annual pace in more than five years in August, on average 2% higher than in August last year but down 0.5% compared with July 2018.
Significant announcements expected:
Friday September 7:
Trading update: Greene King PLC (LON:GNK)
Finals: Ashmore Group PLC (LON:ASHM)
Interims: Secure Income REIT PLC (LON:SIR)
Economic data: Halifax UK house prices; RICS UK house prices; US non-farm payrolls