Thursday's news includes updates from Ocado, Cineworld and Deliveroo but the day is likely to be dominated by the Bank of England’s interest rate decision.
As with its US cousin, there does not seem to be much doubt about a 25bps raise at its Thursday meeting, the third hike in as many months.
This will take the UK Bank Rate to 0.75%, the same level it was before the coronavirus pandemic, with the market expecting this to be followed by 50-75bps of further hikes in coming months though how the chaos arising from the Ukraine war is affecting the Bank's thinking will be worth noting.
“Policymakers have made it abundantly clear that they want to get some pre-emptive tightening done to mitigate against their concerns about higher inflation rates becoming more sustained,” said economist James Knightley at ING.
At the last meeting, four of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) voted for a 50bps hike.
Ocado Group PLC (LSE:OCDO)'s latest trading update will be pored over by analysts for comments about cash burn and spending plans.
Cineworld PLC investors, meanwhile, will be hoping it can put Covid behind it finally, but once again that might prove premature.
“While revenue is forecast to have more than doubled in the year, it won’t have been enough to stop the business from making a loss. In fact, Cineworld isn’t forecast to return to profit until 2023,” said wealth platform AJ Bell.
Deliveroo PLC (LSE:ROO) will publish full-year 2021 results with its shares down 45% since the start of the year and badly in need of a pick-me-up.
The restaurant delivery provider said in its fourth-quarter update that its international gross transactional value (GTV) was up 36% year-on-year for the quarter, with 70% growth for the year at constant currency rates.
Gross profit margin growth of 7.5% to 7.75% was expected for the year.
A week ahead of Thursday’s results, Barclays stuck a 165p price target on the delivery group’s shares (114p today) but its analysts still refused to give a ‘buy’ rating underlining investor nervousness over the gig economy.
Thursday 17 March: Major announcements due
Trading update: Ocado Group plc
Finals: Cineworld Group PLC (LSE:CINE), Deliveroo plc, Trainline PLC (LSE:TRN), Ceres Power Holdings, Emis Group Plc, Empresaria Group, Harbour Energy (LSE:HBR) plc, Helios Towers PLC (LSE:HTWS), Marshalls (LSE:MSLH) Plc, PensionBee Group PLC (LSE:PBEE), Portmeirion (AIM:PMP) Group PLC, Tribal Group
AGMs: Autins Group PLC (AIM:AUTG)
Economic announcements: Bank of England policy decision (UK), Initial Jobless Claims (US), Retail Sales (US), Transglobe Energy Corp (finals)