Monday 21 June
-Rightmove UK house price index
Tuesday 22 June
-Full-year results from online retailer Gear4Music
-UK Government borrowing figures
-DS Smith full-year results
Shares in the packaging giant are trading at their highest level since autumn 2018, thanks to the boom in online shopping stoked by lockdowns, according to AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
Analysts expect a pre-tax profit of £237m, compared to £368m a year ago, although that is not a like-for-like comparison due to DS Smith’s disposal of its plastics business. For the year to April 2022, analysts are looking for a rebound in pre-tax profits to £354m on a stated basis, almost back to where they were before the pandemic.
While it cancelled its dividend in its last full-year report, it declared an interim payment of 4p a share and for the whole year, analysts are looking for a payment of 12.5p a share, with a further increase to 15p in fiscal 2022.
Wednesday 23 June
-Glaxosmithkline investor update
One of the key topics of discussion will be the planned de-merger of the pharma giant’s consumer healthcare business which was combined with Pfizer’s own consumer healthcare business last year, notes AJ Bell financial analyst Danni Hewson. Glaxosmithkline hopes to demerge its stake by 2022.
Divesting this area of the business represents CEO Dame Emma Walmsley’s pivot away from the “three-legged structure” built by her predecessor Sir Andrew Witty of pharmaceuticals, vaccines and consumer health. Walmsley has offloaded several of Glaxosmithkline’s consumer nutrition brands, including Horlicks, and bought US biotech firm Tersaro for $5.1bn.
Despite this the pharma giant’s share price has not improved and is down 15% since Walmsley took over in April 2017. Hewson says the company could also face pressure from US activist investor Elliott which acquired a stake multi-billion pound stake this year.
-Full-year results from Berkeley
With the pandemic driving wealthy city dwellers out into the country, analysts will look to see how well demand for Berkeley’s London-centric homes has held up. So far, the group is on track to deliver a similar level of profit to last year, with forward sales also looking healthy.
But a rapid increase in the cost of construction materials and shortage of skilled labour has created another hurdle to potentially trip the group, according to Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Nicholas Hyett.
-First-half results from Crest Nicholson
-Flash purchasing managers’ indices from Asia, Europe, the UK and US
-US new homes sales data
-US oil inventories data
Thursday 24 June
-John Wood Group Q2 trading statement
In its AGM statement in May, the consulting and engineering firm admitted trading was “slower than anticipated” as large engineering, procurement and construction contracts rolled off the books, while Covid and a volatile oil price conspired against the operations division, says Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst William Ryder.
However, consulting activity is expected to pick up this year, while operations look set to be buoyed by conventional energy demand and growth from “process & chemicals”. Operational resilience is being supported by strong order book momentum, which was up 9% to $7.1bn.
-Monetary policy decision from the Bank of England
-German Ifo Business Climate index
-US weekly unemployment claims figure
-US durable goods orders
-In the US, quarterly results from Nike, FedEx, Accenture and new-found meme stock Blackberry
Friday 25 June
-UK consumer data
The data from GfK, which measures consumer optimism, came in at -15 for April, a one-point improvement on March and the fifth straight gain. It is far higher than the low of -34 reached in April and May of 2020 during the first lockdown, although the reading in February 2020 was -7 so it has not yet reached pre-pandemic levels.
The UK is heavily dependent on consumer confidence as services industries represent around four fifths of UK GDP. Retail sales have begun to recover in the wake of the re-opening as April showed a 9.2% month-on-month increase in volumes and a 42% surge year-on-year as purchases on the high street supplemented, rather than replaced online purchases, according to Mould.
-US Personal Consumption Expenditure data
One of the US Federal Reserve’s preferred indicators of economic health, PCE reached a new monthly record high of $15.6trn in April as a seasonally adjusted annual rate. That represented a 29% year-on-year increase, contrary to what economists would expect given the ongoing pandemic and elevated unemployment level.
Hewson said: “Stimulus checks must be helping here so it will be interesting to see what happens as the US Government eases off on the so-called ‘stimmy’, although unemployment is coming down and wages are going up stateside as well.”
-Belgian Courbe Synthetique business confidence indicator
