Wednesday preview: Fed's Powell, Aviva in focus

Investors' attention around the world will with little doubt continue to be fixated on the ongoing war in Ukraine and attempts to stop it.

Against that backdrop, a spate of US central bank officials are due to take to the podium and there will be interest in how, if at all, their policy views may be shifting as a result of the above.

In particular, at 1500 GMT US Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, will testify before the US House of Representatives' Financial Services Committee, with his remarks likely to carry a lot of weight.

Across the Channel meanwhile, at 1000 GMT, Eurostat will publish a preliminary reading for euro area-wide consumer price inflation in February.

European Central Bank vice-president, Luis de Guindos, and ECB chief economist, Philip Lane, will deliver speeches at 1000 GMT and 1500 GMT, respectively.

On home shores, investors will also be digesting the results of Nationwide's house price survey for February.

Consensus is for a dip in annual house price inflation from 11.2% in January to 10.8% in February.

On the corporate side of things, UBS analyst Will Hardcastle expects Aviva will post a 24.6% drop in operating profits for the half to reach £894m, for earnings per share of 15.3p.

The former was 4% below the analyst consensus.

Hardcastle also anticipates that the company will announce a further £3bn of capital returns, a figure that is at the bottom end of the range for estimates.

Aviva had previously guided towards "at least" £4bn of capital returns by the first half of 2022 and £1bn had already been carried out.

Hardcastle was anticipating some excess capital to be set aside for bolt-on acquisitions with a view to shifting the business mix towards non-life/General Insurance.

The cost saving target of £300m by FY 2022 meanwhile was expected to be met or beaten and might be increased, he said, bringing it in line with rival L&G.

Wednesday 02 March

INTERIMS

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