A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

Whether you like it or not, the World Cup will continue to dominate the headlines again this week. A number of companies hoping to benefit from the general football euphoria will be in focus this week. It will be interesting to see if the excitement of the fans has overflowed to the high street. The banking sector will have another strong showing this week, with trading updates from Lloyds TSB and HBOS in the pipeline. Their reports are likely to provide an insight into the broader health of the economy; comments from other banks last week suggested that the level of bad debts among their customers was increasing. Lloyds TSB will be the first to highlight the issue of debt levels at its update on Monday. Analysts will be keen to know if insurance protection sales have slowed as the rates of unsecured lending fall. Its AGM on Wednesday, gives HBOS an opportunity to reassure the market. It is also likely to confirm that unsecured bad debts are on the rise, although this forms only a small part of its business mix. The bank will probably not produce any trading surprises since it provided an update as recently as April. DSG International will be unveiling its full-year results on Wednesday, and pre-tax profits are expected to be in the order of 315m to 320m, down from 333m last year due to sluggish sales of white goods early in the year. Televisions make up 12% of DSG's total group sales. Investors will be keen to know how great a fillip the World Cup has actually been, given mixed reports on TV sales in the lead-up to the tournament. Also on Wednesday, J Sainsbury will unveil details of Q1 trading. The market is looking for more than 5% growth in like-for-like sales during the quarter. The World Cup is expected to have been good for business as fans stock up on beer and snacks for the games, however, investors will be looking to see how margins are faring, rather than focusing on sales alone. Engineer, WS Atkins, which holds key public transport maintenance contracts in the UK, will present FY results on Thursday. The group is forecast to unveil solid growth and bullish prospects for 2007. Its Network Rail business is expected to have been a major profit driver in the second half of this year. Atkins' operations in China and the Middle East are also likely to have performed strongly. Other companies in the limelight this week include Majestic Wines and Thus on Monday; British Energy and Whitbread on Tuesday and Dyson and Crest Nicholson on Thursday. Yet another busy week in prospect..... Good hunting! Greystone (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

Cheers for the thread greystone.

Hopefully some more volatility in store this week although I believe Burnanke will be keeping his mouth shut all week :-(

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng closed the morning down 80.89 points at 15,761.76, while the Nikkei was recently up 28.01 points at 14,907.35.

New York's main oil contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, was down 23 cents at $69.65 a barrel from $69.88 in the US late Friday.

Early broker notes:

DEBENHAMS STARTED AS 'OVERWEIGHT' BY MORGAN STANLEY, 230 PENCE TARGET
DEBENHAMS STARTED AS 'OUTPERFORM' BY CREDIT SUISSE, 220 PENCE TARGET
WOOLWORTHS DOWNGRADED TO 'UNDERPERFORM' FROM 'NEUTRAL' BY CREDIT SUISSE

Happy trading!

G.

Morning all.

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