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Tuesday preview: Central bankers, Ashtead in the spotlight
The economic calendar for Tuesday is quite sparse, but a fair bit will be going on in the background with many of the world's top central bankers already in Sintra, Portugal, for the European Central Bank's summer forum - at an important juncture for the world economy.
Against that backdrop, overnight investors will be keeping an eye on the release of the minutes of the Reserve Bank of Australia's last policy meeting.
The minutes will be published at a time when the wheels of global monetary policy are continuing to turn, albeit not yet in all jurisdictions, including Down Under, in China and in Japan.
On a related note, according to Bloomberg, at $11.8trn larger than after the fall of Lehman Brothers, the combined balance sheets of the world's main central banks was just a tad smaller than at its peak value of $12.3trn.
That compared to a global equity market capitalisation of approximately $90trn as of January 2018, said strategists at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, versus $30trn as of March 2009, with global financial assets now standing at $180trn or 226% of world GDP - an all-time high.
Of interest as well, although they rarely elicit much of a reaction, Eurostat was set to release April current account data for the single currency bloc.
At the last G7 summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel had argued that taking into account trade in services then the US was in fact running a surplus against her country.
In any case, the alleged imbalance between German savings and consumption had been a bone contention between Berlin and other capitals for close to two decades.
Naturally, there was abundant scope for any headlines regarding the ongoing China-US trade spat which might emerge to rapidly dominate the price action in financial markets.
Brexit negotiators would also be headed back to Brussels on Tuesday and Wednesday.
On the corporate front meantime, the US would be in the spotlight, albeit in a somewhat indirect fashion, with two of the most highly US-exposed companies on the London market set to update shareholders: Ashtead and Ferguson (ex-Wolseley).
For the former, analysts at Numis had forecast profits before tax £934m, with EBITDA in its US-focused Sunbelt arm expected to return to year-on-year growth following "significant" investment in its fleet over the previous 12 months.
Numis's Steve Woolf also said he would be monitoring the outfit's guidance on capex as a gauge of management's confidence in the outlook.
Tuesday June 19
INTERIMS
Benchmark Holdings
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Fidelity Special Values, Mobeus Income & Growth 4 Vct
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Building Permits (US) (13:30)
Current Account (EU) (09:00)
Housing Starts (US) (13:30)
Q3
Ferguson
Q4
Ashtead Group
FINALS
Accsys Technologies, Ashtead Group, Bonmarche Holdings, Braveheart Investment Group, Castleton Technology, Flybe Group, Footasylum, Gresham House Strategic , Telecom Plus
ANNUAL REPORT
Biffa
IMSS
Ferguson
AGMS
Caspian Sunrise , Evraz, London & Associated Properties, Luceco , Metals Exploration, Motif Bio, Nautilus Marine Services, NB Distressed Debt Investment Fund Limited, Ranger Direct Lending Fund, Ranger Direct Lending ZDP Shs, Science In Sport, Slingsby H.C, Strategic Minerals, Trinity Exploration & Production, Trufin, Water Intelligence
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Aurora Investment Trust, Taptica International (DI)