Tuesday preview: British Land, easyJet, ICAP, inflation

16th Nov 2009 17:14

Bid speculation regarding British Land has faded since the company offloaded a half-share in its Broadgate property assets in the City of London back in September, which means the attention will be back on the property giant's performance and future strategy.Broker Charles Stanley expects British Land to ask shareholders to draw comfort from a slow-down in the rate at which the value of its property portfolio is deteriorating. Management is also expected to announce a firming of UK property yields and improved investor sentiment. While British Airways continues to experience turbulent conditions, with its staff voting on strike action Monday, no frills airlines such as easyJet, due to issue full year results on Tuesday, seem to be riding out the recession reasonably well.The budget airline said back in late July that it expects to make a full-year profit of between £25m and £50m after increasing revenue by 12% in its third quarter.Charles Stanley expects the budget airline to beat its own most optimistic expectations with a pre-tax profit of £51m in the year to September, down from £122m. Numis Securities is less bullish, even though it thinks the airline had a good fourth quarter, with passenger numbers up 3.4%; Numis is predicting profit before tax of £47m.Inter-dealer broker ICAP is tipped to announce interim net income of around £174m. The company's own expectations are for a rise in group revenue of about 6% year on year, though pre-tax profit will probably be below last year's levels as a result of continued investment in new business and the change in the firm's mix of revenues.On the economic front, Howard Archer, chief UK and European economist of the analyst group IHS Global Insight, said consumer price inflation data for October on Tuesday are likely to show a marked spike up in the annual rate to 1.6% from a five-year low of 1.1% in September. The change is due to weaker comparisons, with oil prices having tumbled in October 2008 from their earlier highs in line with the worsening global economic situation.'Core consumer price inflation is seen edging up to1.8% in October from 1.7% in September. In addition, annual underlying retail price inflation is expected to have climbed to 1.8% in October from 1.3% in September. The year-on-year decline in retail prices is seen narrowing to 0.9% in October from 1.4% in September, with deflation still being the consequence of mortgage interest payments being much lower than a year ago,' Dr. Archer said.INTERIMS Big Yellow Group, British Land Co, Burberry Group, ICAP, Imaginatik, Intelek, Oxford Instruments, VT Group INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Aviva INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Industrial Production (US) (14:15)Producer Price Index (US) (13:30)Trade Balance (EC) (10:00)UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSConsumer Prices Index (09:30)Retail Prices Index (09:30)FINALS Care UK, EasyJet AGMS Barratt Developments, Smiths Group UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Consumer Price Index (09:30) Retail Price Index (09:30) FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Henderson EuroTrust