Thursday preview: EU summit, Greene King, DS Smith

Final results from Greene King and DS Smith will be out on Thursday morning and a ton of economic indicators are also due for release at home and abroad, however the focus for the markets will likely be on the crucial two-day EU summit which kicks off tomorrow.

At the summit in Brussels, European leaders are expected to discuss specific steps towards a cross-border banking union, closer fiscal integration and the possibility of a debt redemption fund, however expectations of any firm solutions or decisions are very low.

"With expectations so low for a change, we may just see a surprise in the markets. There has been little movement in equities in particular in the first half of the week, so I expect to see a big reaction one way or another," said analyst Craig Erlam from Alpari.

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On the corporate front, pubs group Greene King will report its figures for the 12 months ended April 30th 2012. Consensus estimates are for revenues of £1,122m (2011: £1,042m) and pre-tax profits of £148m (2011: £116.8m).

"The group's bias towards community pubs limits its exposure to record petrol prices, and it should benefit from the Olympics in its c250 London pubs," said analysts at Panmure Gordon on Monday.

Recycled packaging group DS Smith will represent its results for the same period, with revenues expected to jump from £2,475 to £3,827m, according to consensus forecasts. Pre-tax profits are estimate to climb from £102m to £188m.

The group announced last week that it had cleared all the hurdles needed to complete its reverse takeover of Swedish giant SCA Packaging. SCA is by some measures Europe's second largest packaging company and the deal is expected to cost FTSE 250 player DS Smith a cool €1.7bn.

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Town Centre Securities

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Bloomberg Consumer Confidence (US) (14:45)

Business Climate Indicator (EU) (10:00)

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Economic Sentiment Indicator (EU) (10:00)

GDP (Final) (US) (13:30)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

PMI Retail (EU) (09:00)

PMI Retail (GER) (08:55)

Unemployment Rate (GER) (08:55)

FINALS

Greene King, ReNeuron Group, Smith (DS)

ANNUAL REPORT

Castings, Maple Energy

AGMS

Amati VCT , Black Sea Property Fund Ltd (The), Cosalt, Crimson Tide, DCD Media, Dods (Group) , EIH Plc, Elektron Technology, Eurasia Mining, Evolve Capital, Harvey Nash Group, JSC Acron GDR (Reg S), JSC Sitronics GDR (Reg S), Ludorum, Maple Energy, National Bank of Greece ADR, OAO Severstal GDR (Reg S), Red Leopard Holdings, Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust, Serica Energy, Solgold, Stobart Group Ltd., Tullow Oil, Watermark Global, Xenetic Biosciences, Xtract Energy

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Balance of Payments (Payment Balance) (09:30)

Current Account (09:30)

GDP (quarterly national accounts) (09:30)

Index of Services (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

British American Inv Trust

BC