The calendar of earnings releases is looking lighter for the week ahead but there is still a broad range of companies set to report.
Kicking the week’s earnings off is Oracle, with investors hoping to see a boost from the company’s partnerships with other tech giants.
Chipmaker Broadcom’s report will be closely monitored by markets, as escalating trade tensions between the US and China present headwinds for the sector.
Markets will want to see if Spanish retail company Inditex, whose brands include high-street favourites Zara and Bershka, can continue its run of strong growth.
Investors will be looking to British American Tobacco’s trading update to see how the business is performing as the sector faces increasing regulatory pressures.
In the travel sector, markets will be waiting to see if TUI can match, or even beat, its earnings guidance for the year.
Shares in enterprise-computing giant Oracle hit a record high last month, with the stock now up 77% year-to-date, giving the stock a market valuation of $516bn (£404bn).
This has helped drive the net worth of its co-founder and chief technology officer Larry Ellison higher. He has a more than 40% stake in the company, according to Business Insider. Forbes real-time billionaires list shows that Ellison is currently the third-richest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of $229.4bn.
Adjusted revenue of $13.31bn beat analyst forecasts of $13.26bn, while adjusted earnings of $1.39 came in ahead of estimates of $1.33.
“The biggest obstruction from enterprises going hardcore into AI is the data problem,” he said. “It’s getting the data right. It’s co-mingling the right data to give generative AI the right solutions without leaking confidential information.”
For certain customers, Moorhead said this meant that “Oracle is the place to go. So they will be the data broker for the generative AI age.”
In its latest rating, investment bank Jefferies maintained a “buy” recommendation on Oracle’s stock but raised its price target on the shares from $190 to $220.
Chipmaker Broadcom’s guidance in September for fourth quarter revenue fell short of Wall Street expectations. The company said it expected revenue to come in at $14bn in the final quarter, versus estimates of $14.13bn.
However, revenue for the third quarter of $13.07bn was slightly better than the expected $13.03bn. Adjusted earnings of $1.24 per share also topped the $1.22 estimate.
Shares fell following the release of these results in September, though the stock has recovered and is up 53% year-to-date.
Analysts have remained bullish on the stock, with UBS (UBSG.SW) most recently keeping its “buy” rating on Broadcom shares, raising their price target from $170 to $200.
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Chip stocks have benefitted from strong demand amid the global race to invest in AI, with the Philadelphia Semiconductor index, known as the SOX (^SOX), up 20% year-to-date.
However, there has been some pressure on shares more recently amid escalating trade tensions between the US and China.
This week Chinese industry bodies said that companies domestically should be careful of buying US chips, saying that they were “no longer safe” and encouraging them to buy locally instead. This came after the US launched crackdowns on exports of chips to Chinese companies.
The rise in trade tensions is happening even before US president-elect Donald Trump has returned to office. Trump, who is due to return to the White House in January, has proposed wide-sweeping tariffs on countries, particularly China.
Zara-owner Inditex’s string of strong results this year has continued to propel shares higher, with shares reaching a fresh record high this week, up 41% year-to-date.
In its interim results, released in September, Inditex posted 7% growth in sales to €18.1bn (£15bn), while net income rose 10% to €2.8bn.
Inditex said its brand’s autumn-winter collections were already proving popular with customers, with store and online sales having risen year-on-year by 11% between the beginning of August and September.
Deutsche Bank (DBK.DE) Research analysts said in a 2025 outlook note on Monday that they had upgraded their rating for Inditex from “sell” to “hold”.
Read more: Stocks to watch in European luxury and retail in 2025, according to Deutsche Bank
Research analyst Adam Cochrane said: “Inditex is a great business. Arguably the best retailer globally … with a sustainable competitive advantage. The company has managed to get on the flywheel of growth with better sales driving better profitability and encouraging more investment into the business.”
In a separate note, released on Friday, Deutsche Bank analysts said they expected Inditex to report 8% growth in sales in the third quarter to nearly €9.46bn. They also forecast net income of €1.74bn, up 10% year-on-year.
In addition to how the company has been trading in November and December, the analysts said investors would also be looking for any discussion of the impact of potential US trade tariffs and whether “increased visibility of collaborations is a deliberate strategy to help elevate the brand”.
Despite increasing regulatory pushback on the sector, shares in British American Tobacco (BAT) are still up 29% year-to-date.
Shares rose on the back of BAT’s interim results in July, in which the tobacco giant reported earnings per share of 169.3p for the first half. This beat analyst estimates of 165.9p per share, according to Reuters.
Revenues were down 8% year-on-year to £12.3bn ($15.6bn) in the first half. However, BAT said it had added a further 1.4m consumers of its smokeless brands, saying that this part of the business now accounted for nearly 18% of its group revenue.
A number of countries are moving towards tougher rules on smoking. European Union ministers said earlier this week that they were encouraging member states to adopt stronger measures on smoke-free environments. Meanwhile, MPs in the UK have backed a bill that could mean anyone born after 1 January 2009 will be prevented from legally smoking, if it becomes law.
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In the interim results, BAT said it was still on track to meet its full-year guidance for 2024. This included low-single figure organic revenue growth and adjusted profit from operations.
AJ Bell’s investment experts Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that analysts were expecting BAT to generate total sales of £26.3bn and earnings per share of 360p, on an underlying adjusted basis.
“After those figures, the key will be to watch for any guidance on cash flow, and how BAT plans to allocate it,” they said.
BAT’s management had already guided to a full-year dividend of 238.4p per share, which would be up from 235.5p in 2023, as well as a £700m buyback in 2024 and a £900m buyback in 2025.
“In the past five years, cash flow has comfortably covered the dividend and actually done so by an ever-wider margin, despite the ongoing decline in stick volumes,” Mould, Hewson and Coatsworth said.
BAT’s trading update, due out on Wednesday 11 December, will give a glimpse into its fiscal year results, though the actual full-year results for 2024 are set to be released in February.
Travel operator TUI has already said it expects to deliver full-year results in line with expectations, on the back of positive booking momentum and a strong end to the summer season.
TUI said in a trading update in September that it expected to deliver 25% growth in earnings before interest and tax for the full-year. That’s based on a benchmark of €977m earnings before interest and tax for 2023.
The travel company said it had also seen a promising start to the winter season, as customers continued to prioritise spending on leisure experiences.
Read more: Investors shift to US funds and tech in November amid lower interest rates
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.L), said that the 25% growth TUI guided to in its trading update “might even prove to be modest”.
“The markets and airlines segments have been flying high this summer, buoyed by strong bookings and rising average selling prices,” he said. “Encouragingly, that momentum seems to have carried into the winter season, with leisure spending still a top priority for consumers despite economic headwinds.”
“Investors will be keen for more colour on how this trend is shaping up,” he added. “It’ll also be interesting to see if the holiday experiences segment lives up to TUI’s raised expectations.”
Shares have seen some volatility throughout 2024 but are still up 20% year-to-date.
Monday 9 December
Oracle (ORCL)
Toll Brothers (TOL)
Tuesday 10 December
NCC (NCC.L)
Ashtead (AHT.L)
Thungela Resources (TGA.L)
Colruyt (COLR.BR)
Metro AG (B4B.DE)
Autozone (AZO)
GameStop (GME)
Ferguson (FERG)
Wednesday 11 December
Cohort (CHRT.L)
S&U (SUS.L)
TUI (TUI1.DE)
Lennar (LEN)
Thursday 12 December
RWS (RWS.L)
De La Rue (DLAR.L)
NewRiver REIT (NRR.L)
Jabil (JBL)
CostCo (COST)
Ciena (CIEN)
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