A Brief Look At The Week Ahead

Compass will be in the spotlight this week but for all the wrong reasons, with management confronting the market to present the group's FY results on Tuesday. Compass is facing an independent investigation into the activities of its subsidiary Eurest Support Services (ESS) and the procurement of UN contracts. At the same time, it is hunting for a new CEO, selling its travel concessions business Select Service Partner and being accused of making ex-gratia payments. Last week the UK's Serious Fraud Office joined the fun, deciding to instigate its own review into the alleged UN corruption. Market consensus for Compass's FY pre-tax result is now around 580m, greatly lower than the 2004 figure of 645m. The weakness in Compass's share price, down 40%, and lack of a CEO has led to takeover speculation. The banking sector kicks off its pre-close trading updates this week. The first bank to face the market is Barclays on Tuesday. Its share price has risen by 14% since mid-October, driven by strong results from European investment banks and expectations of an upbeat statement. Analysts are keen to see evidence of a deal pipeline for next year and an update on UK credit quality. Less detail is expected HSBC's pre-close update on Friday. Analysts are expecting an upbeat announcement showing strong wholesale banking volumes and targeted expansion in higher margin growth markets. In the drinks sector, Britvic sends out its prospectus to analysts and potential investors on Monday. The group is owned by InterContinental Hotels, Whitbread, Pernod Ricard and PepsiCo, and is likely to be worth around 800m when it floats in mid-December. In the same area, Wolverhampton & Dudley Breweries (Friday) and Mitchells & Butlers (Wednesday) are expected to continue the recent strong showing of the pub sector. The sector was heavily oversold in the summer due to misplaced concerns about the impact of falling consumer spending. However, analysts are forecasting a pre-tax profit of 88.4m for W&D, a 14% improvement on last year. There are similar expectations for M&B, with the market looking for an 8% rise in pre-tax profit to around 187m. Among others in the spotlight this week will be CAT and Torotrak on Monday; Cardpoint on Tuesday; Jarvis and Sportingbet on Wednesday and United Utilities on Thursday. Should be fun. Good hunting! I am now the happy user of a wifi satellite broadband service that will allow me to return to kicking off the daily Traders Threads each evening instead of morning - which seems to be the general preference. I will start that with Tuesday's thread. However, the service could vary during the week as I will be travelling to London midweek for some business meetings and staying over for the MoneyAM Christmas do on Friday. I'm looking forward to seeing you there. Greystone (Greystone is Alan English, City Editor at MoneyAM.)

where can i get broker forecasts for this weeks companys reporting?

Good morning traders!

In Asia this morning, the Hang Seng reached midway up 21.61 points at 15,103.08 while the Nikkei has ended the day up 202.65 points at 14,986.94.

Early broker notes:

TRINITY MIRROR CUT TO 'EQUAL-WEIGHT' VS 'OVERWEIGHT' AT MORGAN STANLEY
JOHNSTON PRESS CUT TO 'UNDERWEIGHT' VS 'EQUAL-WEIGHT' AT MORGAN STANLEY
BODYCOTE DOWNGRADED TO 'IN-LINE' FROM 'OUTPERFORM' BY GOLDMAN SACHS

Happy Monday!

G.

bigbob - you can pick up a lot via the MoneyAM AFX news feed. For instance, here is a link to some of this week's results forecasts.....

Results Forecasts

Good morning all.

thanks greystone,much appreciate your efforts.

Good Morning all,

No frost this morning, but still verrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrry cold

Good morning all, heavy snow where I am.

Morning :>)

End-of-day Market Summary