Look Ahead: ECB; US GDP; McDonald’s, Shell, Barclays earnings

(Video Transcript)

Look Ahead: Fed decision

Hello! Welcome to IGTV. This is your Look Ahead to 27 July 2023. There is plenty to digest. Of course, we'll already have the Fed decision and also the comments from Japan. However, the central bank action doesn't go away because we have more in the coming session.

First up, Germany has its consumer confidence numbers out. These are the GFK ones, expectations for August: negative 24.7. Pay special attention to what those numbers tell us about the manufacturing side of things, which has been weakening of late out of Germany.

Also in the Eurozone, and as I mentioned, there's plenty more central bank action. We've got the ECB this time deciding on interest rates, pretty much baked in a 25-basis-point hike for the ECB as well.

But what economists and the markets will be looking out for closely will be the communications on their future rate paths. The Bank of Japan, just a reminder, also is out with a rate decision this week. It faces a different challenge, though, and is expected to keep its negative 0.1% short-term interest rate target, despite inflation consistently exceeding its target. There are signs now that the Japanese economy is heating up.

Is the US economy firming up?

And in the United States we have Q2 GDP figures, quarter-on-quarter expectation there, 1.8%. We also have initial jobless claims and pending home sales figures too, which will give us further hints of whether the US economy is starting to look more resilient and able to achieve that Holy Grail called a soft landing or, indeed, if things are starting to sour over there.

Earnings

In terms of earnings, we've got quite a few big ones to look out for. From the UK, we've got Shell PLC's second quarter earnings. Shell expected to show a fall in quarterly revenues. Just bringing up its chart there: Shell is key because of the volatility currently seen in the oil markets. The UK-based company is expected to report a 45.6% fall in revenues: to $54.4 billion from a hundred billion dollars a year ago. This is according to the mean estimate from two analysts based on Refinitiv data.

Meanwhile, we also have Barclays PLC out with earnings. It is expected to report a 2% decrease on its revenue. Let me just bring up the share price here for you. Barclays will be a key one to watch out for because it's not just the earnings that give us an idea of how this company is doing, but also it gives us a broad view on how the UK economy is faring as well.

As I mentioned earlier, Barclays expected to report a 2% fall in revenues according to estimates from analysts based on Refinitiv data.

Meanwhile, we also have BT's trading statement due. This is for the first quarter.

Look out for first half earnings from Anglo American and also ITV and, from Europe, Volkswagen drives into view with its first half earnings, as well as Nestle, and Total Energies also releases first half number.

From the United States, one of the big ones to look out for in terms of consumer names is McDonald's and all sessions stock on IG.com. It's expected to report a 9.6% increase in sales to $6.2 billion or thereabouts from $5.7 billion a year ago. And, finally, we also have Ford out with second quarter earnings as well as Intel and Comcast.