A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

As house owners continue to be digest last week's news that house prices have fallen for the second month in a row, the City will be looking to Northern Rock for guidance on how the mortgage business is faring. Tomorrow will see a trading update from the lender, the first of the banks to provide indicators for Q3 business. Analysts are keen to see if the buy-to-let market is holding up and what is happening with remortgaging. Although Northern Rock has in the past been one of the best-performing banks, analysts believe that the mortgage market in general is under pressure from climbing levels of bad debt and the slowing economy. That concern will make next week's interest-rate decision by the Monetary Policy Committee even more important. Rates were held at 4.5% last month after a fall in August. The City expects the MPC to hold the rate once again but that more cuts are on the cards at some stage, probably early in 2006. BP publishes a trading statement this week ahead of Q3 results. The oil giant can't help but book record numbers, and analysts will be keen to see if this trend can continue. H1 profits were $10.4bn (5.9bn) on the back of high oil prices, but the current lack of refining capacity and drilling equipment could mean that oil companies will have to invest substantially to recover reserves and process them. On the high street. Both Austin Reed, the upmarket men's clothing chain, and Ted Baker, the designer clothing manufacturer and retailer, produce interim results on Thursday. Analysts have little reason for cheer with Austin Reed, which has been affected by poor sales from its Country Casuals outlets. Predictions for the half-year range from a loss of 1.2m to 1.7m, with a consensus forming around break even for the full year. The City is especially concerned about the effects of the London bombings on the company's flagship store on Regent Street. Ted Baker seems to be bucking the high-street trend. Pre-tax profits for 2004 were up 21% to 16.8m, with the growth coming on the back of new store openings, mostly in the US. Analysts see that continuing, and predict an increase in sales of 18% for the half-year, with pre-tax profits set to reach 6.3m. In a fairly thin week for reporting Sinclair Pharma, John David Group and Michael Page will create some interest while passenger traffic updates from BA and easyJet will also be scrutinised. I hope you all find something there to turn into a profit. 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.)

hi greystone/ many thanks WHAT this profittaking well done///

Good morning traders!

In Asia today, the Hang Seng ended the morning down 26.48 points at 15,402.04 while the Nikkei reached the midpoint down 43.74 points at 13,530.56.

On the oil front, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for November delivery, had risen 9 cents to $66.33 a barrel from its close of $66.24 in the US on Friday.

Off to find some UK news.....

Happy trading!

G.

PS My regards to Bristol ;-)

Morning all

Morning! No work today. ;-))

ITM taking steps. Good stuff!

DA. got results
DA. issue equity
DA. got new Chairman Designate
Busy old DA., eh? If I'm right they've today almost doubled the shares in issue at 30p. Ouch!

GON do deal

Pretty much a news free zone out there today.

Midday Market Summary

Afternoon all. Thanks for all the great information on this thread.

End of day market summary