The mid-point of the week will be somewhat quiet compared to the jam-packed Thursday, however a trading update from housebuilder Vistry may attract some interest.
Vistry, which operates under the Bovis and Linden brands, said in May it had made a very positive start to the year with strong demand across all areas of the business.
The average weekly private sales rate of 0.75 per site in the first five months of the year was up 21% on the same period of (pre-pandemic) 2019.
The company’s May update saw full-year profit guidance raised to £325mln or thereabouts, up from £310mln previously. It would not be a total surprise were the company to raise expectations again although rising material costs may yet upset the housebuilders’ lucrative apple cart.
Meanwhile, traders are likely to be keeping an eye on the macro calendar as the US Federal Reserve releases the minutes to the June meeting of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
“That’s the meeting where they changed their forecast to show not one but two rate hikes by the end of 2023. Investors will scrutinize the minutes for details of the discussion that led up to that decision and any insights that they can glean about the Committee’s views on the economy. We’ve heard from so many FOMC members since then that I’m not sure we’ll learn much, but there always seems to be one or two nuggets of information or nuance that affect the market,” said Marshall Gittler at BDSwiss.
Significant announcements for Wednesday July 7:
Trading announcements: Vistry Group PLC (LON:VTY), Ferrexpo PLC (LON:FXPO), Ten Entertainment Group PLC (LON:TEG)
Finals: Adept Technology Group PLC (LON:ADT), Creightons PLC (LON:CRL), Enteq Upstream PLC (LON:NTQ)
Interims: Schroder European REIT PLC (LON:SERE),
Economic data: US Fed minutes, UK house prices