Thursday preview: Lloyds, Unilever in focus

The latest third-quarter earnings from Lloyds will be in focus on Thursday, along with Q3 trading statements from Unilever, London Stock Exchange Group, InterContinental Hotels and Rentokil.

As far as Lloyds is concerned, Neil Wilson, UK investor strategist at Saxo Markets, said revenues are seen rising almost 10% to £4.73bn, with net income at £1.02bn. NII is expected to rise 6% £3.43bn.

"One question is what NIMs do as the Bank of England cuts rates," he said. "The key for the stock will be on the full-year outlook and the forecast for next year. Investors will pay close attention to guidance on full-year capital generation and shareholder returns."

Barclays reported its third-quarter numbers on Wednesday, while NatWest is slated to report on Friday.

Meanwhile, UBS expects consumer goods giant Unilever to report 4.6% growth in underlying sales, up from 3.8% growth in the second quarter. Within this, the bank models a 2.2% increase from Price and 2.3% for volume/mix.

"On an ex. Ice Cream basis, we expect the company to deliver +4.6% with balance price and volume/mix split (versus Visible Alpha consensus at 3.7% with +2.2% price and +1.5% vol/mix)," the bank said.

"Post the Ice Cream (Mid-Nov) separation, we expect the company continues to heavily rely on the particularly strong momentum of Well Being (both Liquid IV and Nutrafol expected to reach $1bn in sales this year).

"A favourable basis of comparison in H2 in key emerging markets should drive a pick-up in USG (UBSe +4.4%) but we would expect some market scepticism to persist until we get more evidence of the sustainability of the Well Being franchise sales trajectory and of ULVR's structurally superior growth in EM."

In the EU, quarterly results are due from Roche, Renault and Thales, among others.

Across the Pond, T-Mobile, Intel, Honeywell, Blackstone and Ford are among the companies due to report quarterly earnings.

Thursday October 23

INTERIMS

HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited A Shs, Wynnstay Properties

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Endeavour Mining, Fidelity European Trust, Morgan Sindall Group

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

BAE Systems, FDM Group (Holdings), Marshalls, Morgan Advanced Materials , Sanderson Design Group, Serica Energy, Touchstar

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

City of London Inv Trust, M Winkworth, Supermarket Income Reit, TBC Bank Group, Tufton Assets Limited Npv

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Consumer Confidence (EU) (15:00)

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Existing Home Sales (US) (15:00)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

New Homes Sales (US) (15:00)

Q3

NCC Group, Nokia OYJ

GMS

Smarttech247 Group

FINALS

Gattaca, Sareum Holdings

IMSS

Lloyds Banking Group

AGMS

Acg Metals Limited Cls A Npv (DI), BHP Group Limited NPV (DI), Newmark Security PLC, South32 Limited (DI) , Thruvision Group, Tufton Assets Limited Npv

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Abrdn , AJ Bell, Hunting, Inchcape, InterContinental Hotels Group, London Stock Exchange Group, Relx plc, Rentokil Initial, Spirent Communications, Unilever

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Abrdn Property Income Trust Limited , MJ Gleeson , Moonpig Group , Pacific Horizon Inv Trust, Strategic Equity Capital, Wetherspoon (J.D.)