Monday 28 February
- – Full-year results from Bunzl
- – First-half results from Hays
- – Trading statement from Associated British Foods
Hargreaves Lansdown’s lead equity analyst Sophie Lund-Yates said: “ABF has shown an incredible ability to keep customers coming through Primark’s doors, despite a lack of online business. What’s been most impressive is its ability to shift excess stock built up from lockdowns.
“As life has continued to get back to normal, we expect to see a continuation of positive trends next week. It will be interesting to see the group’s outlook statement, as demand patterns are hard to predict, but now things are calming down that’s no longer the case.
“Soaring commodity prices will also be making themselves known in the various food businesses, and it remains to be seen what the net effect will be between higher input costs and ABF’s ability to hike prices.”
- – Analysts’ meeting at GlaxoSmithKline
- – Nationwide UK house price index
- – In the US, quarterly results from HP Inc, Zoom Video Communications
Tuesday 1 March
- – Full-year results from Croda, Flutter Entertainment, Travis Perkins, Reach and Rotork
- – Trading statement from Intertek
- – Manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) in Asia, Europe, UK and US
- – Monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia
- – UK mortgage approvals
- – US monthly car sales
- – In Asia, quarterly results from Sea Limited, Baidu
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Bayer, Beiersdorf, Zalando, HelloFresh
- – In the US, quarterly results from com, Target, Hormel Foods, HPE, JM Smucker and AMC Entertainment
Wednesday 2 March
- – Full-year results from Aviva, Persimmon, Polymetal, Weir, Vistry and Vimto-maker Nichols
“Shares in life insurance giant Aviva are up by around a sixth over the past year and are back to the pre-pandemic levels of late 2019,” said AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould and financial analyst Danni Hewson.
“That said, they still trade well below the pre-crisis peak of early 2007, let alone the all-time highs reached in the late 1990s.
“That is why activist investor Cevian turned up on the shareholder register last year and subsequently took its stake to some 6%. Cevian is demanding more cost cuts and at least £5bn of cash returns from Aviva – the equivalent of 127p a share, no small sum on a share price of around 435p as I record this.”
The duo said investors will be looking for three things:
1) An update on this strategic plan.
2) Whether the board will increase the scope of its cash return plan from £4bn to the £5bn demanded by Cevian – Aviva increased the scope of its share buyback to £1bn from £750m alongside November’s third-quarter results.
3) And a progress update on Aviva’s plan to reduce what it calls controllable costs by £300m between 2018 and 2022. Cevian is calling for a £500m cut by 2023, but with inflation galloping higher and wage growth accelerating it will be interesting to see if this is still a realistic goal.
- – First-half results from Hotel Chocolat
- – EU inflation figures
Stuart Chilvers, fund manager, fixed income team, Rathbones, said: “European inflation data for February is released on Wednesday, with bond investors hoping to avoid another upside surprise after the January figure came in significantly above expectations at 5.1% vs the consensus forecast of 4.4%. However, excluding energy, the figure was far lower at 2.5%.
“This will be the last European inflation print before the ECB meeting in March, where we can expect to see inflation forecasts revised higher. Given the hawkish nature of the previous ECB press conference and the commentary we have seen from some ECB officials since, investors are likely to play close attention to the core inflation figure for any indication that inflation is broadening out and the potential policy implications.
“However, we would expect that in the short-term, direct implications for the bond markets will be relatively limited with moves dominated by news flow regarding the Russia-Ukraine crisis.”
- – OPEC+ meeting
- – Monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Canada
- – ADP employment change data in USA
- – US oil inventories data
- – Federal Reserve ‘Beige Book’
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Sberbank and Just Eat Takeaway.com
- – In the US, quarterly results from Snowflake, Dollar Tree, Best Buy and Splunk
Thursday 3 March
- – Full-year results from Taylor Wimpey, London Stock Exchange, CRH, Entain, Mondi, Rentokil Initial, Admiral, Melrose Industries, Meggitt, ITV, Hunting, Hiscox, Pagegroup, Coats and Elementis
Mould and Hewson said: “Taylor Wimpey’s comprehensive trading update back in January provided many of the key details for trading in 2021 but these full-year results should be notable all the same, not least because they will be the last ones to be released during Pete Redfern’s tenure as chief executive, which dates back to July 2006. Mr. Redfern steps aside in April, when his successor Jennie Daly will take the helm.”
Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Matt Britzman added: “Next week’s full-year results should reflect what’s been a strong backdrop over the past year. Mortgage availability has remained high, interest rates low by historical standards and house prices are showing no signs of slowing. With that, there should be operating profits of £820m, with margins of 21-22%. Those margins will be watched closely, as will any further updates on margin outlook as cost inflation and supply chain pressures have been a persistent headwind.
“Updates on forward sales should give an indication on where demand is for 2022. That’ll be timely information given the governments most recent data suggested house sales in January cooled off. Investors will be eyeing more information on shareholder returns, given management hinted at a possible share buyback in last month’s trading update. The group finished the year with net cash of £837m, in addition to an already strong strategic land bank, so there should be cash to spare. Remember though, there are no guarantees.”
- – Services purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) in Asia, Europe, UK and USA
- – US weekly unemployment claims
- – US factory orders
- – In Asia, quarterly results from com
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Lufthansa,
- – In the US, quarterly results from Broadcom, CostCo, Marvell Technology and Universal Music
Friday 4 March
- – Full-year results from Hammerson
- – Japanese unemployment rate
- – UK construction industry purchasing managers’ index (PMI)
- – US non-farm payrolls
Mould and Hewson said: “With the Federal Open Markets Committee poised to announce its next interest rate decision on 16 March the latest set of American jobs data could prove influential – although frankly you would like to think that the US Federal Reserve has a more rigorous framework for policymaking than ducking and diving around the most recent pieces of (backward-looking) macroeconomic data.
“Last time around, according to the US Bureau for Labor Statistics (BLS), in January, America added 467,000 jobs.
“The estimate for December was upgraded hugely, to 510,000 from 199,000. That put the BLS on course to upgrade its initial estimate for the ninth consecutive month in a row across the two subsequent revisions that are published – and generally the numbers tend to see upgrades to the initial estimate when the US economy is doing well and downgrades when it is slowing down or doing badly.
“This all seems a long way removed from the 20.5 million job losses suffered in the month of April 2020 as the pandemic really hit home in the USA.”
