Monday 3 March
- Full-year results from Bunzl and Senior
- Purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) for manufacturing from Asia, the EU, UK and USA
- UK mortgage approvals
- EU inflation
- US car sales
Tuesday 4 March
- Full-year results from Intertek, Beazley, Weir, Greggs, IWG, Bakkavor, Reach, Keller, Travis Perkins, Inchcape, IWG, Oxford Nanopore and Kitwave
- In Saudi Arabia, quarterly results from Aramco
- Asia, quarterly results from Prada and Sea
- In Europe, quarterly results from Thales, Lindt, Continental and Davide Campari Milano
- In the US, quarterly results from AutoZone, Flutter Entertainment, BestBuy, Macy’s, Urban Outfitters and Nordstrom
Ashtead will release its third-quarter results on Tuesday amid plans to move its primary listing from the LSE to the New York Stock Exchange.
Despite most of the company’s business coming from the US, a possible beneficiary of Trump’s plans to grow the US economy, the stock has gone down 7% in the last year.
Russ Mould, AJ Bell investment director, Danni Hewson, AJ Bell head of financial analysis, and Dan Coatsworth, AJ Bell investment analyst, said: “The reason for this slide, which leaves the shares one quarter below 2021’s all-time high, lies with three profit warnings, two for fiscal 2024 and now one for the year to April 2025.
“The first two seemed like one-offs, owing to the Hollywood writers’ and actors’ strikes and then 2024’s hurricane season. The third, issued in December, flagged strong work following hurricane strikes and ongoing major projects under the Inflation Reduction Act as positives, but then admitted higher interest rates had hit construction activity in the USA.”
Full-year rental sales growth expectations now sit between 3-5%. Analysts have also downgraded their expectations for group sales to £10.7bn, which would result in a 7% drop in year-on-year pre-tax profit.
“Management’s guidance on capital expenditure should also be informative. The more bullish Ashtead feels, the more kit it will buy so it can rent it out,” the AJ Bell trio said.
“But at the first-half stage, capex was down by a third to $1.7 billion and the firm made just two bolt-on acquisitions at a cost of $53 million, compared to the $705 million spent on sixteen purchases the year before. Capex for the year is now due to be around $2.6 billion, down from $3.8 billion in the year to April 2024.”
Wednesday 5 March
- Full-year results from Dowlais, Foxtons, Breedon and SIG
- First-half results from Ricardo and Netcall
- Purchasing managers’ indices (PMIs) for services from Asia, the EU, UK and USA
- Federal Reserve Beige Book
- ADP US payrolls survey
- US factory orders
- US oil inventories
- In Europe, quarterly results from Adidas, Bayer, Sandoz, Dassault Aviation, AIB and Evonik
- In the US, quarterly results from Marvell, Brown-Forman, Campbell Soup and Abercrombie & Fitch
Thursday 6 March
- Full-year results from Rentokil Initial, Informa, Admiral, Melrose Industries, Endeavour Mining, ITV, Hunting, Lancashire, Robert Walters, PageGroup, Harbour Energy, Grafton, Vistry, Elementis, Funding Circle, Dalata Hotels and Coats
- UK purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for the construction industry
- Japanese wage growth
- European Central Bank interest rates decision
- Challenger, Gray and Christmas US job losses survey
- US weekly initial unemployment claims
- In Asia, quarterly results from JD
- In Europe, quarterly results from DHL, Universal Music, Zalando, Lufthansa, Solvay, Vivendi and Air France-KLM
- In the US, quarterly results from Broadcom, Costco, Kroger, HP Enterprises and Gap
Health and hygiene company Reckitt Benckiser will produce its full-year results on 6 March, as it attempts to rebuild its share price from an all-time low last July.
The share price woes resulted in a turnaround strategy introduced by CEO Kris Licht, which includes a new corporate operations structure, a cost-cutting program, and a focus on core brands, such as Strepsils, Dettol and Lemsip.
“Analysts and shareholders will therefore have much to ponder, but the first datapoint they will check will be volume and price growth across the whole group and the individual reporting segments, under both the old and new structures,” Mould, Hewson and Coatsworth said.
“Reckitt’s big challenge has been a slowdown in volumes and price across the whole group, with Nutrition an understandable source of particular discomfort given the high-profile legal case.”
Analysts anticipate sales for the year to fall 3% to £14.7bn with an operating profit of £3.3bn, down 2% from 2023. This leads operating margin to be estimated at around 23%. In 2016, operating margin sat closer to 29%.
“Such lofty operating margins tend to translate into strong cash flow and analysts do expect an increase in the annual dividend. After a 5% increase in the interim dividend, analysts think that Reckitt’s board will sanction a total, full-year number of 203p a share, some 4% higher than in 2023,” the AJ Bell trio said.
Friday 7 March
- Full-year results from Just Group
- Chinese inflation
- US non-farm payrolls, unemployment rate and wage growth