Monday 24 October
- – Trading statement from Pearson
- – Flash manufacturing purchasing managers’ indices from Asia, Europe and the UK
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Philips
Tuesday 25 October
- – First-half results from Whitbread
- – Third-quarter results from HSBC
- – Trading statements from Shoe Zone and Hunting
- – Japanese inflation
- – Belgian Courbe Synthetique economic survey
- – US Case-Shiller house price index
- – US Conference Board consumer confidence survey
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Novartis, SAP, UBS, Randstad, SKF and SSAB
- – In the US, quarterly results from Alphabet, Visa, Coca-Cola, Texas Instruments, UPS, Lockheed Martin, General Electric, 3M, General Motors, Twitter, Kimberly-Clark, Halliburton, Spotify, Teradyne and Mattel
Wednesday 26 October
- – First-half results from Bloomsbury Publishing
- – Trading statements from WPP, Standard Chartered and Elementis
- – Ifo German economic sentiment survey
- – Policy decision from the Bank of Canada
- – US new homes sales
- – US oil inventories
- – In Asia, quarterly results from UMC
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Iberdrola, Daimler, Heineken, Banco Santander, BASF, Universal Music and UniCredit
- – In the US, quarterly results from Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Boeing, Ford, Kraft-Heinz, United Rentals and Wolfspeed
Thursday 27 October
- – Third-quarter results from Shell, Lloyds and Unilever
- – Trading statements from Anglo American, Aveva, Renishaw and Foxtons
- – US Q3 GDP growth
- – US durable goods orders
- – US weekly unemployment claims
- – In Asia, quarterly results from Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Baidu
- – In Europe, quarterly results from TotalEnergies, AB-InBev, Kone, Carlsberg, Repsol, Volvo Cars and Credit Suisse
- – In the US, quarterly results from Amazon, McDonald’s, Comcast, Honeywell, Intel, Altria, Newmont Mining and Southwest Airlines
- – European Central Bank (ECB) interest rates decision
The ECB will announce its latest strategy on Thursday. In contrast to the Bank of England and the Fed, the ECB has only raised interest rates twice so far this year – a 50bps rise in July, followed up with a 75bps increase in September to leave European rates at 1.25%. However, markets are expecting an increase to 2% on Thursday, which would bring rates to their highest level since February 2009.
AJ Bell financial analyst, Danni Hewson, said: “[A 75bps increase] would mean interest rates are still hugely negative in real, post-inflation terms since inflation is running at 9.1% across the EU on average—France had the lowest rate at 6.6% and Estonia the highest at 25.2%. The ECB, therefore, still has work to do if it is to return inflation to the mandated 2% level, and economists and investors will therefore be looking for more details on the bank’s proposals for quantitative tightening.
“Lagarde [ECB president] and her colleagues have, so far, rather fudged this issue with talk of an anti-fragmentation mechanism to help the more indebted, southern nations should bond yield start to rise once the ECB starts to shrink its balance sheet and sell some of the €7trn bonds it has acquired since the launch of quantitative easing in the wake of the financial crisis in 2009.
“That talk has yet to really convince anyone and – as the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve are finding out – turning QE into QT is not easy, at least without causing some dislocation somewhere.”
- – Apple Q4 results
Apple will post its Q4 results on Thursday. These results could give some indication as to how the cost of living crisis is affecting consumers behaviour. Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: “In the third quarter, Apple’s sales of innovative gadgets fell slightly. Hardware sales make up about three quarters of total revenue, so this was a disappointing development. Investors will be hoping the recent launch of the fourteenth generation of iPhone has stoked momentum, but it’s not expected to have moved the dial too much yet because of the timing of the release.
“What will be more prudent to monitor will be the outlook statement and whether customers are holding back on buying brand new models amid rising inflation. The latest iPhones start at £1,099 in the UK but there are earlier models priced as low as £499, and so it will be interesting to see if there is any evidence of down-trading.
“There will be a watch on whether there’s continued momentum in Apple’s services offering, which has shown stronger growth of late. But investors should remember that the world of Apple is a tight-knit ecosystem and if hardware sales growth doesn’t return this will also impact Apple’s ability to sell services.
“Apple’s cash generation is impressive, with analysts expecting free cash flow of $111.6bn for the financial year just ended. There’s room to grow pay outs to shareholders and so eyes will be on any news about the dividend and buybacks next week.”
Friday 28 October
- – Third-quarter results from NatWest
- – Trading statements from Glencore and Computacenter
- – UK Conservative Party to elect leader and successor to prime minister Liz Truss
The candidates are out of the starting gate as the race to become the next leader of the Tories and prime minister of the UK gets underway. They need a minimum of 100 votes from fellow MPs to make it past the first stage. With 357 serving members of parliament, that means only three people can be real contenders.
The front runners are currently thought to be former PM Boris Johnson, whose premiership died the death of a thousand cuts; Rishi Sunak, who lost out to Truss in the previous leadership race; and Penny Mordaunt, who narrowly missed the cut to get into the final two the last time around.
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has already ruled himself out of the running, a sensible move given his success in steadying the ship in the wake of the disastrous mini-budget makes it likely that his services will be retained once the new leader is chosen. But, as ever in UK politics, nobody should count their chickens before they hatch.
- – UK mortgage approvals
- – UK money supply growth
- – US pending homes sales
- – In Asia, quarterly results from ICBC and Budweiser Asia-Pacific
- – In Europe, quarterly results from Sanofi, Volkswagen, ENI, BBVA, Holcim and Swedish Match
- – In the US, quarterly results from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Colgate-Palmolive and Royal Caribbean Cruises
- – Bank of Japan (BoJ) interest rates decision
The BoJ is set to report its latest interest rate decision on Friday. In contrast to most other major economies, the bank has continued its dovish approach and left its interest rate untouched at -0.1%, despite inflation reaching an eight-year high of 3% in September.
Hewson said: “[The BoJ] is expected to leave its headline interest rate unchanged at -0.1%, stick to its qualitative and quantitative easing policy of buying assets to the tune of JPY 80trn a year, or £475bn a year, and cap the 10-year Japanese Government Bond yield at 0.25%.
“The BoJ is just managing to defend that 0.25% cap, just, and no change is expected until governor Haruhiko Kuroda steps down at the end of his second term in April 2023. At the very least the BoJ’s balance sheet is starting to shrink, so the winds of change may be blowing here too.”
