Tesco and Burberry Group will be the centre of attention Wednesday as the FTSE 100 companies unveil their latest trading results.
British supermarket Tesco is expected to report its first fall in underlying annual profits in two decades.
Analysts at Vuma Consensus predict an underlying pre-tax profit of £3.5bn in the year to end of February 2013, a 10.7% decline from the £3.92bn reported the previous year.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
The decline will reflect the cost of restructuring which was launched after the supermarket issued a profit warning in January 2012.
The £1.0bn turnaround plan includes more employees, refurbished stores, revamped food ranges and price initiatives. It aims at reversing years of underinvestment and a loss of market share to rivals like Sainsbury and Wal-Mart's Asda.
Tesco, the world's third largest retailer after Wal-Mart and Carrefour, has also been affected by the Eurozone debt crisis, regulatory difficulties in South Korea and losses at its Fresh & Easy business in the US.
Meanwhile, fashion firm Burberry is expected to show a slump in sales performance when it releases its trading update.
The group last posted a 13% rise in underlying revenues to £464m in the three months to December 31st. However, analysts at Nomura expect Wednesday's update to show the sales performance has slowed since the Christmas season.
They forecast fourth quarter sales growth to drop to 3.0%, with an additional 8.0% contribution from new space.
Wholesale revenues are pegged to decline by 2.0% as a tough European economy hits the luxury designer, according to Nomura.
Nevertheless, the broker said 2013/14 will be a "key year for Burberry", with management changes and its new beauty product division.
Wednesday April 17th
INTERIMS
Smiths News
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
News Corp. 'A' Shares, News Corp. 'B' Shares
INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE
Albemarle & Bond Holdings, Alpha Real Trust Ltd., GETECH Group, Ingenious Entertainment VCT 1 G Shs, Ingenious Entertainment VCT 2 G Shs
QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE
Land Securities Group
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Beige Book Fed Survey (US) (19:00)
New Car Registrations (EU) (10:00)
FINALS
Amerisur Resources, Tesco
ANNUAL REPORT
UTV Media
IMSS
Hargreaves Lansdown
SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Ortus VCT
EGMS
Sperati CA
AGMS
Aberdeen Smaller Companies High Income Trust, Hunting, Moneysupermarket.com Group, Ruspetro
TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS
Burberry Group, Speedy Hire
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Lancashire Holdings
FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE
Alkane Energy, Arbuthnot Banking Group, ARM Holdings, BAE Systems, BG Group, Caledonia Mining Corporation, Capita, Cenkos Securities, Chemring Group, Clarke (T.), Communisis, Costain Group, Downing Planned Exit VCT 2011 (General Shares), Downing Planned Exit VCT 2011 (Low Carbon Shares), Downing Planned Exit VCT 2011 (Structured Shares), EMIS Group, Frenkel Topping Group, Fresnillo, Glanbia, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, IDOX, Johnson Service Group, Melrose Industries, Mobeus Income & Growth Vct, Molins, Mondi, Morgan Advance Materials , Novae Group, Petrofac Ltd., Rentokil Initial, Resolution Ltd., RM, Smith & Nephew, Spirax-Sarco Engineering, Taylor Wimpey, Tullow Oil, Unite Group, Vitec Group, Wood Group (John)
UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
MPC Minutes (09:30)
ILO unemployment rate (09:30)
Claimant count (09:30)
RD
