Monday 11 May
– Centrica Q1 update
“Life keeps getting tougher for the group with falling oil prices lowering demand for power and expectations that bad debts are likely to rise all as a result of the current crisis,” the Share Centre said.
Last month saw Centrica suspend its final dividend, withdraw guidance for the year ahead and cut its cash expenditure. Thus “investors should not expect a return to dividend payments this year,” the research house said.
Tuesday 12 May
– US inflation figures
– Numis interim report
– Land Securities full-year results
AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould said Land Securities’ £1.2bn in cash and lack of debt repayments until 2023 have provided some reassurances to stakeholders, despite the group cancelling its Q3 dividend of 11.6p a share.
“Analysts will be asking what will happen in the retail and leisure industries, where the five biggest clients are Cineworld, Boots, Sainsbury, H&M and Next, and also looking at offices and whether more people will look to work from home in the future on a permanent basis, decreasing the need for big buildings,” he said.
The valuation of the Reit’s assets and updates on its pipeline of development projects, including plans to turn four London sites from 100% retail into mixed-use areas that heavily feature residential properties, will also be worth looking out for.
– Vodafone Q4 results
With chief executive Nick Read deciding to cut the telecom company’s dividend a year ago to €0.09 from €0.15, analysts will be looking to see if Vodafone’s 5G and broadband services can boost organic revenue amid stiff competition in the UK, Italy and Spain and if it can chip away at its net debt of €48.1bn, said Mould.
– Wm Morrison Supermarkets Q1 sales
The Share Centre rates the UK’s fourth largest supermarket chain as a ‘hold’. It points out the group’s market share has fallen to 9.9% but it has smaller exposure to non-food and banking products, giving it a leg up on other competitors in the coronavirus climate.
– US monthly federal budget deficit
Coming in at $119bn in March, AJ Bell’s Mould said the US “is well on the way to setting an unwanted record deficit for the fiscal year to September” after Congress passed $3trn worth of aid packages to cushion the blow from the coronavirus.
– US NFIB smaller companies confidence index
Mould notes the index fell to 96.4 in March, the lowest score since October 2015, and the April readout is expected to be even lower.
“It will be interesting to see how close sentiment gets to the great financial crisis low of 81.9 reached in March 2009 – not that equities may care as they continue to price in a V-, or at least a U-shaped, recovery.”
– Quarterly results from Saudi Aramaco, less than six months on from the oil major’s initial public offering on the Riyadh exchange
– In Japan, quarterly results from Toyota Motor and Honda Motor
Wednesday 13 May
– Q1 update from Spirax-Sarco Engineering and brewery Marston’s
– Trading updates from Aston Martin Lagonda and TUI
– Sage Group Q2 earnings release
Though the Newcastle-based software company, owned by both Nick Train and Terry Smith, showed guidance being ahead of expectations in its last update for the six months to March, its operations are expected to take a hit from the coronavirus, the Share Centre said.
“The group seemed to be well-positioned with a healthy balance sheet, but investors will be hoping the online subscription services are still doing a good job at offsetting some of the weakness associated with the virus,” the research house said.
Since the Covid sell-off kicked off on 20 February, Sage’s shares have fallen 19% to £6.35.
– UK monthly GDP
– Quarterly results from Tencent and Sony
– US oil inventories data
– In Europe shipping giant AP Møller-Maersk and Commerzbank release Q1 results
– Cisco Q1 update
Thursday 14 May
– H1 results from WH Smith and trading update from Balfour Beatty
– Weekly US unemployment insurance claims data
– Prudential Q1 figures
“Lower stock market valuations will certainly have a negative impact on fee income on assets it manages while the disruptions are likely to have put other things on consumers’ minds rather than making retirement plans and policies,” the Share Centre said.
“Its US business will now be facing the same issues as America is shutdown too and investors will wonder how this affects its planned separations of the US business from the rest.”
Friday 15 May
– Scottish Mortgage full-year earnings
James Anderson’s (pictured) £9.4bn investment trust has remained near the top of the IT Global sector despite volatile markets during the pandemic.
Over the worst drawdown period (20 February – 23 March), it was down 27.7% against the sector’s 31.7%. Since then the tech-heavy trust, which counts Amazon, Alibaba and Netflix in its top 10 holdings, has rebounded sharply as share prices in the sector have recovered and pushed higher. Over one month it is up 17.8% compared with the IT Global sector’s returns of 7.6%, according to Trustnet.
Tesla, its largest holding at 10.3% of net asset value, has also bounced back and is trading near $782.58 a share, over one and a half times higher than at the start of the year when shares were worth $430.26 a piece.
Elon Musk’s electric car company has come out on top of traditional auto makers during the coronavirus crisis, with Tesla’s Model 3 becoming the UK’s top selling car last month when the sale of new vehicles across the industry plummeted by 97%.
– US retail sales
– Bookmaker William Hill releases a trading update
– Chinese economic data and employment figures
The latest monthly growth numbers from Beijing for investment in fixed assets, retail sales and industrial production should give a steer on the shape of China’s economic recovery and provide clues on what the West can expect from its post-lockdown recovery “whether it is V, U, W, tick, L-shaped … or something else,” said Mould.
Markets are currently pricing in a fairly swift pick-up in economic activity and corporate earnings from the bounce back in April, he noted, despite China’s GDP plunging 6.8% year-on-year in Q1.
