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The Week Ahead: City looks to Aberdeen to maintain its momentum

 

Toby Green
Sunday 29 April 2012 22:36 BST
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Today

Aberdeen Asset Management will be hoping its recent strong run can continue after it releases its interim results today. Singer Capital Markets is expecting the fund manager to reveal its assets under management total £185bn, with net outflows for the period of £1 billion – the result of a significant improvement over the last few months, given clients pulled out a net £2.8bn during the first quarter.

Meanwhile, the broker's scribes believe Aberdeen's revenues for the six months will come to £386m, roughly the same as the first half of last year, while they add that given "the strong momentum which has continued to be exhibited, we would strongly anticipate that there is further scope to upgrade estimates".

Results/Updates: Aberdeen Asset Management, Creston, Harvey Nash, Heritage Oil and Waterlogic.

Tomorrow

BP will be in the spotlight on Tuesday when the energy giant announces its results for the first quarter. Analysts from Oriel Securities are expecting an adjusted net income of $5.2bn (£3.2bn), which would be a 6 per cent year-on-year drop, while they predict production volumes should have stayed around the same as the previous three months.

Anyone hoping for a dividend increase will be disappointed, they add, while noting that a "much bigger near-term driver" of BP's share price than the results will be the outcome of legal settlements over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico tragedy.

Tomorrow also sees Lloyds continue the run of updates from the banks after having warned back in February that revenues over the year would slide. Those results contained the admission that the group's net interest margin will fall below 2 per cent during 2012, and Shore Capital's Gary Greenwood believes the latest on this will a focus.

In addition the analyst will "be looking for evidence of further successful progress" in the run-off of non-core assets, while impairment trends are also likely to be closely examined.

Results/Updates: BP, CSR, Development Securities, Imperial Tobacco, Lloyds Banking Group, Man Group, N Brown, National Express and Reckitt Benckiser.

Wednesday

Much of the attention around BSkyB recently has been on the Murdochs' appearance in front of the Leveson inquiry, Sky News' admission of email-hacking and concerns over whether Al Jazeera will join the fight for Premier League rights. Deutsche Bank, however, believes these issues have been "wrongly obscuring [the] continuing strong operational performance" of the satellite broadcaster, whose third-quarter figures on Wednesday should change that to an extent.

Scribblers from the broker expect the results to "show robust growth in broadband, telephony and line rental", while Berenberg predicts BSkyB will have managed 10,000 net additions for its TV service, having signed up 51,000 viewers during the same period last year.

Results/Updates: Avon Rubber, BSkyB, Carillion, Henderson, Home Retail, JD Wetherspoon, Kofax, Next, Novae, Provident Financial, Spirent Communications, Standard Chartered and Wolfson Microelectronics.

Thursday

Morrisons' first-quarter update should "confirm a slow start to the year", according to Jefferies, which expects the supermarket's like-for-like sales over the period (excluding fuel) to have slipped 0.8 per cent.

Results/Updates: Antofagasta, Avocet Mining, BG Group, Diageo, Legal & General, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, Mondi, Morgan Sindall, Morrisons, Randgold Resources, Rexam, RPS Group, RSA Insurance, Schroders, Smith & Nephew, St James's Place and WSP.

Friday

The banks reporting season continues on Friday with Royal Bank of Scotland. Shore Capital's Gary Greenwood believes the progress of the company's overhaul of its investment banking business will be a major point of interest, while the analyst expects the news from its commercial and retail operations to be "steady as she goes".

Results/Updates: easyJet, Laird, Lancashire, Rentokil Initial, Rolls-Royce and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Economics Diary

TODAY Eurozone M3 money supply; US Chicago PMI; US personal spending.

TOMORROW Manufacturing PMI; US car sales; US construction spending; US ISM Manufacturing PMI.

WEDNESDAY Construction PMI; M4 money supply; Mortgage approvals; Net lending to individuals; US ADP non-farm employment change; US factory orders.

THURSDAY European Central Bank interest rate decision; Services PMI; US ISM non-manufacturing PMI; US unemployment claims.

FRIDAY Eurozone composite PMI; Eurozone services PMI; New car registrations; US non-farm payroll figures.

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