A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

Drugs manufacturers feature high this week as GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca reveal their Q3 performances. Bright news is expected from GSK, boosted by the current avian flu scares, although AZN is not expected to do as well as it did in Q2. Still in the medical sphere, Smith & Nephew will post Q3 figures. Shares in the company suffered their biggest fall in a year last month when it cut its full-year revenue forecasts, saying it had been hurt by Hurricane Katrina and new products from competitors. The 7bn merger with Alliance UniChem will make Boots' half-year results of special interest this week. Investors will be eager to hear whether the pharmacist and retail chain has managed to stem the loss of sales to the big supermarkets, and whether cost-cutting has affected the bottom line. Most analysts expect Boots to be well down on last year's figures and predict the full-year turnover could be down by as much as 80m. Reckitt Benckiser, which acquired Boots' over-the-counter business, will post Q3 results. While the maker of brands such as Dettol and Cillit Bang, will be busy integrating the new acquisition, bought for 1.9bn, investors will also be keen to see if it is on the way to fulfilling its profits forecast. Reckitt remains popular among analysts, the majority of whom rate the company as a buy. There's a little more confidence in Whitbread, the restaurant and hotel operator. Eyes will be on the progress of the Premier Travel Inn busines and the David Lloyd health clubs. Analysts expect top results from Travel Inn, now that this acquisition has been integrated, but the David Lloyd centres are generally considered to have a risky expansion strategy. Other BB favourites in the limelight this week include Egg, Autonomy, Blacks Leisure and Shell. Lots of heavyweights in the public eye this week so it should be a busy few days. Don't forget that the new Champion Investor competition starts on Monday! Register right away a quick start.... Please note: I am in the process of moving house and don't yet have a telephone line installed at the new place. Until that happens, I will be starting off the daily Traders Threads early each morning instead of the night before. I hope you will bear with me on this for a while. I'll return to the evening startup as soon as I can. Greystone (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

Evening all,

Good luck with the move (rather you than me :-))......

Good morning traders!

In Asia, the Hang Seng ended the morning session down 109.38 points at 14,378.47, while the Nikkei was down 83.77 points at 13,116.18 at the break.

OIl eased again: New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, was down 63 cents to $60 a barrel from its close of $60.63 in the US on Friday.

Early broker notes:

ARLA FOODS UPGRADED TO 'OUTPERFORM' FROM 'IN-LINE' AT GOLDMAN SACHS

Happy trading!

G.

Good morning all.

Good Morning all

Morning All,

...Watch out for those birds :-)

- Those birds - a lot of panic about nothing.... A bit like SARS (was that 2 years ago?)

The governments recent guidelines include;

Don't panic
Buy turkey as normal. And chicken. Parrot should be well cooked.
Avoid Greeks and Romanians
Make a will

End of day market summary