After two weeks of relatively low news flow, things are set to pick up again this week. Data releases may be relatively thin on the ground, but corporate announcements will be stepped up. The main item of interest, however, will be the keenly-eyed mid-week announcement of the government's 2009 budget.
Chancellor Alistair Darling is expected to announce on Wednesday, starting at 12.30pm, that the government plans to cut Whitehall spending by £15 billion over the next three years, involving changes that will primarily impact 'back office' functions. All eyes will be on the Chancellor and his battered, red briefcase for further indications of the UK's economic performance. Consensus is for Darling to paint a more pessimistic picture of the economy's contraction than he unveiled last November, with forecasts pointing to the economy contractin by up to 3.5% this year. Next year, however, is set to be the turning point, analysts expect Darling to predict, with the recession coming to an end in late 2009 and the economy achieving growth again in 2010.
Of interest to individual investors will be the Chancellor's comments on ISAs. At present, investors can put up to £3,600 into a cash ISA and up to £7,200 into a stocks and shares ISA, with the maximum total limit being £7,200. Click here to read more about ISAs. However, rumours have suggested Darling could increase this total limit, potentially to around £10,000.
Turning to other diary events scheduled this week, after Monday’s Rightmove house price survey for April, Tuesday will host full-year results from supermarket giant Tesco and interim figures from Associated British Foods.
Tesco is expected to report a solid set of full-year results, with operating profit seen in the region £2.3 billion—an increase of around 7.7% year-on-year, with the company’s operating margin expected to be little changed over the year at around 5.9%. Like-for-like sales excluding petrol sales are forecast to be up by around 3%.
AB Foods, meanwhile, gave a fairly detailed trading update on February 23, so expectations are that there will be few surprises this week from the food producer, except for further confirmation of a tough trading environment.
Also in Tuesday will be the release of the UK retail price index for March.
Moving to mid-week, Wednesday will host the announcement of minutes from the Bank of England’s interest rate decision-making meeting. In addition, this is the day that followers of the economy’s progress will hear the nation’s latest unemployment rate for the month of March as well as a full labour report.
On this same day, pharmaceuticals giant GlaxoSmithKline will announce its first quarter results, while Anglo-Australian mining company BHP Billiton will report its quarterly production figures.
Moving on, Autonomy will announce its interim management statement on Thursday, while Friday will end the week with the UK’s first quarter GDP figures, whereby observers will be hoping to see an improvement on the previous quarter’s 1.6% decline in growth.
March retail sales will also be released on this day. February’s retail sales slipped by 1.9% over the month.
