Wednesday preview: St. James's Place, Game, Unemployment

20th Apr 2010 18:02

Funds have been flooding in this year at wealth management firm St. James's Place so Wednesday's first quarter sales update should be an upbeat affair.The range of forecasts for sales on an annualised premium equivalent (APE) basis runs from £104m to £125m, with the median forecast being £116m. Panmure Gordon is one of the more optimistic brokers covering the company with a forecast of £122.5m. "The 9% growth in Partner numbers in 2009 (2008: +7%) and recovery/stability in investment markets will have helped drive sales," the broker thinks. Panmure predicts life and pension sales will be in the region of £96.4m. "We are not anticipating any specific comment on new business margins but the continued move towards manufactured products will, we believe, imply margin progression," the broker added.Computer gaming retailer Game Group has seen its share price tumble by more than a third over the last year as the company attempts to cope with the burgeoning threat from Internet-based competitors and the fact that the major games consoles are now getting long in the tooth, which is depressing hardware sales. Numis Securities expects trading for the year to end-January will have remained tough and is predicting pre-tax profits of around £88m, a tad below the market consensus of £88.37m. The market is expecting sales to fall back from last year's £1.97bn to £1.81bn, while Numis thinks like for like (LFL) sales will be down by 14% year on year.Singer Capital Markets predicts the tought times will continue for a while yet. "Conditions in the current year are likely to remain challenging with further sales declines expected, however new peripheral launches along with additional growth in pre-owned are likely to drive further margin advancements," the broker said. Singer's pre-tax profit forecast for Game is £88.5m.On the economic front, the release of the minutes of the April meeting of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee is likely to be a non-event. Even if the committee had been minded to change policy it would have been unlikely to do so with a general election in the offing.Unemployment figures are likely to be of greater interest, particularly to those politicians on the hustings. The claimant count unemployment rate for March is tipped to hold steady at 4.9% . The jobless claims change is forecast to show a decline of 6,300 compared to February's surprisingly large fall of 32,300.The number of jobless on the International Labour Organization (ILO) measure is predicted to have fallen by 19,000 in the three months to February to 2.440 million, leaving the ILO unemployment rate steady at 7.8%.INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATEAlbemarle & Bond, Carr's Milling Industries, Equity Partnership Income Shares, London & St lawrence Inv Co.QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATECarador EUR SharesINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSCrude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)FINALSGame Group, Gresham ComputingIMSSBunzl, Hunting, Senior, St James's Place, STV GroupEGMSPetroceltic InternationalAGMS1st Dental Laboratories, Anglo Pacific, Ark Therapeutics, Baronsmead AIM VCT, BlackRock World Mining Trust, Bunzl, Cyan, Drax Group, Herald Inv Trust, Hunting, JPMorgan US Discovery Inv Trust, London Capital Group, LSL Property Services, Meggitt, Oak Holdings, Premier Energy & Water Trust, Reed Elsevier, SVG Capital, STV Group, TikitUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSBBA Mortgage Lending Figures (09:30)BoE Interest Rate Minutes (09:30)Claimant Count Rate (09:30)Unemployment Rate (09:30)Average Weekly Earnings (09:30)FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATEAggreko, Arena Leisure, BAE Systems, Balfour Beatty, Brady, Carillion, Costain Group, Dunedin Income Growth Inv Trust, Edinburgh UK Tracker Trust, Edinburgh US Tracker Trust, Fiberweb, Greggs, H.R. Owen, Interserve, JKX Oil & Gas, Johnson Service Group, Kazakhmys, Molins, Mondi, office2office, Petrofac Ltd., Rolls-Royce Group, Smith & Nephew, StatPro Group, Vitec Group, Xstrata, ZotefoamsQ1Qatar Telecom GDR (Reg S)PRODUCTION UPDATEBHP BillitonTRADING STATEMENT Carphone Warehouse