Friday preview: Bellway, Berkeley Group, US jobless

3rd Dec 2009 16:28

Friday sees attention switch to Britain's slowly recovering housebuilding sector.Housebuilder Bellway Is expected to announce that housing sales in the first quarter of the company's financial year have been flat, but that it has enjoyed a firming of prices, particularly in the south of England.Broker Numis Securities expects the company to say it has started buying up land again and is opening up new sites.Sector peer Berekely issues interim results on Friday and it, too, is expected to highlight the relatively optimistic outlook for the south east of England, including London. Earlier this week the company revealed it had spent more than £50m on land next to the new US embassy which is being built in Nine Elms in south west London. The company acquired a 6.5 acre plot and intends to spend another £70m building a complex that will include a hotel, some flats and new offices to serve the embassy.On the economic front, eyes will be on the US non-farm payrolls data for November. On Wednesday, payroll processing firm ADP said private-sector firms cut 169,000 jobs in November compared with 195,000 in the previous month. The decline was the smallest since July of last year but was higher than the 150,000 job losses economists had been expecting. The figures are regarded as a broadly reliable indicator to the official non-farm payrolls data. INTERIMSBerkeley Group Holdings INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEBalfour Beatty, DCC, Hilton Food, JZ Capital Partners, Northern 2 VCT, ProVen Health VCT, SThreeINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSFactory Orders (US) (13:30)Gross Domestic Product (EU)Manufacturing Payrolls (US) (13:30)Non-Farm Payrolls (US) (13:30)Retail Sales (EU)Unemployment Rate (US) (13:30)FINALSInnovation Group, Minorplanet Systems, EGMSDeutsche LandAGMSAssociated British Foods, Capital Lease Aviation, Ceres Power Holdings, Interior Services, LP Hill, Minerva, Pantheon Resources, Waterman GroupTRADING ANNOUNCEMENTSBellway, SThreeFINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEAnglo and Overseas Trust, Ashmore Group, BlueBay Asset Management, Global MENA Financial Assets Ltd., James Halstead, Jupiter Dividend & Growth Trust, Matchtech, Murgitroyd Group, Plexus, Quadnetics Group, Schroder Oriental Income Fund, St Ives, United Carpets