Thursday offers up another big slice of company results that will largely be ignored as the market's attention remains firmly on Ukraine.
DS Smith PLC (LSE:SMDS) will almost certainly give an update on how Russian sanctions will affect its performance in a third-quarter trading update.
According to Sophie Lund-Yates, an equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, although the company doesn’t directly operate in Russia, “the full effect of economic sanctions is hard to predict”, and the update should provide clarity on any potential impact.
The papermaker has already nodded to rising raw costs but DS Smith has benefited from increasing its own prices without seeing a drop-off in demand.
However, “there is a point at which higher prices could start to eat into volumes though and we’ll be looking to make sure the group hasn’t reached this tipping point.”
Shares in the company have been on a decline over the last six months and currently change hands at 312p, down 31% on the 449p it was trading at in September.
Capita PLC (LSE:CPI) investors must be hoping for better news after a tumultuous start to 2022
The outsourcing group left the FTSE 250 in the latest reshuffle after seeing its share price contract nearly 40% year to date.
Capita’s troubled turnaround saga began in 2018 with a £720mln restructuring budget but it needed another £80mln in March of 2020.
The company is on a disposals spree, which included the £62mln sale of its software division in October and the £380mln sale in June of its 51% stake in Axelos, with a target of £700mln of disposals in 2021 and the first half of 2022.
Come the afternoon and the focus will turn to the US where another eye-watering inflation number is forecast.
Consensus is for a rise in the core figure of around 6.4%, which is before the surge in oil, gas, wheat, fertiliser, metals etc sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Announcements expected: Thursday 10 March
Finals: Balfour Beatty plc (LSE:BBY), Hill & Smith Holdings PLC (LSE:HILS), Just Group PLC (LSE:JUST), National Express Group PLC (LSE:NEX), Savills PLC (LSE:SVS), Secure Income REIT PLC (AIM:SIR), Spirax-Sarco Engineering (LSE:SPX) PLC, Spirent Communications (LSE:SPT) PLC, Capita PLC (LSE:CPI)
Trading update: DS Smith PLC (LSE:SMDS)
Interims: Brooks Macdonald Group plc (LSE:BRK), Volution Group PLC (LSE:FAN)
AGMs: BMO Capital and Income Investment Trust PLC (LSE:BCI)
Economic data: Consumer Price Index (US), Continuing Claims (US), Initial Jobless Claims (US), RICS Housing Market Survey (UK), Balance of Trade (UK), Gross Domestic Product (UK), Index of Services (UK), Industrial Production (UK), Manufacturing Production (UK)