How tough is life going to get for housebuilders? A first clue should come when Barratt Developments PLC (LSE:BDEV) (Barratt Developments PLC (LSE:BDEV)) publishes its trading update covering July to October.
Shares in the FTSE 100 housebuilder are trading at around six-year lows on concerns over consumer confidence, rising mortgage rates and general availability.
Analysts expect sales across the sector to drop sharply in the wake of the pulling of mortgage deals following the mini-Budget with Barratt to be affected alongside its peers, while investors will look to this update to see how forward sales are affected (see more in the full Barratt preview).
Elsewhere, defence technology specialist QinetiQ Group PLC (LSE:QQ.) will load up its own update, fresh from announcing two transactions in the past week and benefitting from increased defence spending in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine.
One was the sale of a ‘non-core’ Belgium space business, with the proceeds redeployed into Air Affairs, a defence services company supplying the Australian Defence force and operating a fleet of special mission aircraft.
At its first-quarter update in July, it said “Recent world events have reinforced the long-term needs of our customers, including capabilities utilising differentiated technology, alongside test and training solutions that are directly aligned with our strategy”.
It revealed a “strong start” to the year, with governments all around the world “seeking to enhance their defence and security stance against the evolving future threats,” with rising defence spending in all of its three home countries – UK, US and Australia – and its offerings “well aligned with segments of the defence budgets that are priorities to combat future threats”.
Significant announcements on Wednesday
Trading updates: Barratt Developments PLC, PageGroup PLC (LSE:PAGE) (PageGroup PLC (LSE:PAGE)), QinetiQ PLC
Finals: Kin and Carta PLC
AGMs: Fletcher King (AIM:FLK) (Fletcher King (AIM:FLK)) PLC
Economic updates: Gross Domestic Product (UK), Index of Services (UK), Industrial Production (UK), Manufacturing Production (UK), Balance of Trade (UK), MBA Mortgage Applications (US), Producer Price Index (US)
US earnings: PepsiCo (NASDAQ:PEP)