Tuesday preview: BP and Hunting in focus
Markets' focus on Tuesday will shift to corporate results on both sides of the Pond, with social media giant Facebook amongst those scheduled to update investors.
On this side of the Atlantic, it is the oil patch that will be in the spotlight, with BP and Hunting both due to update investors.
For the former, analysts at RBC were ahead of consensus in their forecasts for all three of the oil major's main divisions, anticipating total third quarter net income of $3.2bn versus consensus at $2.85bn.
In particular, the outfit was expected to have benefited from higher commodity prices and a wider spread between West Texas Intermediate and Western Canadian Select at Whiting.
RBC also expected BP to queried on the exact split between equity and cash it intended to use to finance the purchase of BHP, as well as on its divestment plans for the remainder of 2018.
BP had previously targeted between $2-$3bn in asset sales for the year, but over the first six months had only sold $300m-worth of assets.
On Hunting, Numis analyst James Hubbard was expecting the oilfield services outfit to post nine-month operating profits of $113m, although otherwise management wasn't expected to go beyond providing qualitative comments on the operating environment throughout the calendar, together with updated guidance on its full-year revenues.
Perhaps most significantly, Hubbard believed the shares' correction since late August had been mostly to do with a slowdown in activity in the US Permian basin, as per recent negative commentary from US peers Schlumberger and Halliburton.
But he believed their comments had to be interpreted from the standpoint of their own "over-exhuberant" expectations; hence, his expectation was for Hunting's management to say that they were not seeing any "operational slowdown" in the Permian.
As for Reckitt Benckiser, analysts at UBS were expecting the household products giant to post a 3.7% rise in organic sales, driven by expectations of ongoing trade stocking in China for Mead Johnson Nutrition, easy comparatives from last year, better pricing and small improvements for the Hygiene/Home division in recent industry data.
Nevertheless, the Swiss broker added that: "While a +3.7% headline figure would appear to be an improvement over the lacklustre growth rates of late, we think RB is still not outperforming its end-markets."
UBS also pointed out the company's premium valuation versus its EU peers in terms of its relative price-to-earnings multiple, going on to say that it was hard to justify given how, once easy prior year comparatives were taken into account, the firm's LFL sales were barely growing.
Stateside, investors will be asked to digest a barrage of company results, including those for: Amgen, Coca Cola, Facebook, Electronic Arts, Pfizer and Mastercard.
On the economic side of things, the main releases across the Channel will be German unemployment figures for the month of October, alongside a reading on Eurozone industrial confidence for that same month.
In the US meanwhile, S&P is due to publish it Case-Shiller home price indices for the month of August, followed by the Conference Board's consumer confidence gauge for October.
Tuesday October 30
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Business Climate Indicator (EU) (10:00)
Consumer Confidence (EU) (10:00)
Economic Sentiment Indicator (EU) (10:00)
GDP (Preliminary) (EU) (10:00)
Industrial Confidence (EU) (10:00)
Services Confidence (EU) (10:00)
Unemployment Rate (GER) (08:00)
Q3
Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, BP, Hunting, Reckitt Benckiser Group
GMS
Electra Private Equity, Randall & Quilter Investment Holdings (DI)
FINALS
Proactis Holdings
EGMS
Syncona Limited NPV
AGMS
Accrol Group Holdings, Angle, Hargreaves Services, Ideagen, JPMorgan Mid Cap Inv Trust, Newmark Security PLC, Real Good Food , Scancell Holdings
TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS
Hunting, Shoe Zone
UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Nationwide House Price Index (06:00)
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
City of London Investment Group, K3 Capital Group , Rank Group