Tuesday preview: US CPI, Spring statement in focus

All eyes will be on the latest US consumer price data and the Chancellor's Spring statement on Tuesday.

Weaker-than-expected figures on US average hourly earnings release on the previous Friday eased market concerns regarding the possibility that the US central bank might have fallen 'behind the curve'.

However, any overshoot versus economists' forecasts on either the headline CPI (consensus: 2.2%) or on the 'core' measure (consensus: 1.8%) might easily rekindle such concerns.

Back in the UK, following Hammond's decision to shift towards an Autumn budget statement, no new spending or tax measures were expected.

Similarly, analysts at Capital Economics expected OBR would only expected revise its near-term GDP forecasts a tad higher and not alter its projections for labour productivity.

Even so, Hammond still looked to be on track to meet his target for public sector net debt to begin falling, as a proportion of net debt, by the 2020/21 fiscal year.

In the corporate space, the flow of company updates was set to pick-up again on Tuesday, with oil explorer Cairn Energy among those expected to update investors on its latest set of full-year financials, with analysts at Numis looking for further details pertaining to the outfit's development plans for its SNE find, offshore Senegal.

To take note of, Cairn was targeting government approval for SNE by the end of 2018, with first oil expected between 2021 and 2023, versus the 2023 date Numis had penciled-in.

A development plan was also expected to be submitted for the Skarfjell discovery offshore Norway in the first half of the current year, with a decrease in the company's capital outlays for 2018 on Kraken from roughly $125m seen as possible.

Tuesday March 13

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Consumer Price Index (US) (12:30)

FINALS

Antofagasta, Applegreen, Baillie Gifford Shin Nippon, Bango, Brady, Cairn Energy, Computacenter, Crossrider , Fevertree Drinks, French Connection Group, Glenveagh Properties, Goals Soccer Centres, Gresham Technologies, H&T Group, LMS Capital, Menzies(John), Midwich Group, Non-Standard Finance, Restore, Smart Metering Systems, Stadium Group, Surgical Innovations Group, TP ICAP, XLMedia, Zotefoams

INTERIMS

Close Brothers Group, Eagle Eye Solutions Group

ANNUAL REPORT

Hunting, William Hill

AGMS

BlackRock Commodities Income Inv Trust, CC Japan Income & Growth Trust

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Renew Holdings