Monday 5 April
-ISM non-manufacturing purchasing managers’ index in the US
Tuesday 6 April
-EU unemployment figures
January’s figure was 7.3% for the third month in a row. Whilst there was some hope that government support schemes, vaccinations and an easing of lockdowns would help to cap the jobless rate, nearly 1.5 million have lost their paid post in January 2020.
There is a wide range of figures behind the headline numbers. Greece and Spain have similar unemployment rates of 16.2% and 16%, while Poland’s is as low as 3.1%. Germany’s has climbed to 4.6% from 3.4% over the past year and France’s unemployment rate has held at 7.9%.
-HMT reinstates the 25% LISA exit penalty for early access
-Income Tax Personal Allowance and Higher Rate Threshold to increase in line with September Consumer Price Index
-Trading update from Homeserve
-Monetary policy decision from the Reserve Bank of Australia
-US Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS)
Wednesday 7 April
-Full-year results from Saga and Hilton Food
-Services industries’ purchasing managers’ indices from Europe and the UK
-US oil inventories data
-In Europe, a trading update from Finnair
-In the US, quarterly results from CostCo
Thursday 8 April
-Asos first-half results
Asos’ shares have more than trebled in the past year thanks to the firm’s presence in the online retail space.
It raised £247m from investors last April to make sure it could weather the pandemic and since then it has performed consistently strongly, according to AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson.
Total group sales were up by 24% in the four months to the end of December, which analysts think will increase by 21% for the year as a whole to around £4bn, including first-time contributions of the assets purchased from Arcadia.
Analysts will look for the impact of higher cotton and raw material prices, higher shipping costs, stock availability and any impact from Brexit and tariffs, which the firm has suggested could cost it £25m.
-Trading updates from Entain and Dunelm
-UK construction industry purchasing manager’s index
-In the US, quarterly results from Constellation Brands and Levi Strauss
Friday 9 April
-Halifax UK house price index
Halifax’s last published average standardised house price was, on a seasonally adjusted basis £251,697. While this represents a drop of 0.1% from the last month, it still represents a gain of more than 5% year-on-year. The extension of the stamp duty holiday, the latest version of Help to Buy and the Government’s mortgage guarantee scheme may have given prices a fresh boost, Hewson says.
The average selling price, calculated from trading updates and results from a range of house builders, including Bellway, Crest Nicholson and Persimmon, is around £300,000, yet the average UK salary is barely a tenth of that.
-Chinese consumer price and producer price (factory gate) inflation figures
-US producer price (factory gate) inflation figures
-In Asia, a quarterly sales update from TSMC
