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A Brief Look At The Week Ahead | |
It is time again for the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee to hold its monthly deliberations to decide on interest rates. The discussions on Wednesday and Thursday are expected to focus very much on the continuing weakness in the UK retail sector. UK PLC is seen as ticking over quietly, neither performing well enough to raise inflationary fears nor poorly enough to trigger calls for a rate cut. All signs point to the MPC keeping rates steady at 4.5% for the eighth month in a row. Only one of the committee's nine members, Steve Nicholl, voted for a cut at last month's meeting. Wizardry will be back in vogue on Tuesday when Bloomsbury Publishing, which prints the Harry Potter series, is set to maintain its prediction in January that pre-tax profits for the year would be 20m. The company has benefited from strong sales of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J K Rowling's latest book about the adolescent wizard, which was released last year. News from the author that the next, and final, book in the series is progressing well will please investors. Signet, owner of H Samuel and Ernest Jones jewellery chains, reveals its annual results on Wednesday. Panmure Gordon is expecting the group to report a 15%yearly rise in operating profit from the American business, which includes Kay Jewellers, and a 40% drop in operating margins in the UK, as the sluggish retail market continues to drag it down. The results could rekindle speculation that investors may be better served if the group split itself into two companies. The jeweller is expected to unveil 196.6m in pre-tax profits, down from 220m the year before. NTL is expected to finally launch its offer for Virgin Mobile this week. This 970m deal, valuing VMOB at 372p per share, first surfaced at the end of November, and was agreed in principle when Sir Richard Branson said he'd take less than other investors to push it through. In a relatively thin week, other companies under scrutiny will include Egdon Resources on Monday, Bellway and Resolution on Tuesday; Henry Boot on Wednesday, with Chelford and Innovation on Thursday. On the face of it, a quiet week. But I'm sure there will be one or two surprises springing up to take advantage of. Good hunting! Greystone (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.) |
Share | Volume | Chart | News | Various |
CEY price 31.375p | A huge volume last Friday about 8 times the usual 3er largest for the last year | Is continuing the uptrend on the chart after 5 weeks of retracement should be into a new BREAKOUT very soon as MACD just done a bullish crossover | Last Friday's 20.6M placing @ 27.5p was well received by the market, the funds raised will secure the development of the Sukari mine with processing facilities for 5M oz per Year. Gold trading at a 25-year high of $586 | Brokers were recomending this mining stock to go higher last Friday at "Master Investors conference" after positive feed back from the Managing director |