Look Ahead 3/8/23: BoE set to hike rates; Apple, Amazon, Lufthansa, Adidas earnings previews

(Video Transcript)

BoE likely to hike interest rate

Hello, welcome to IGTV. I'm Angeline Ong, and this is your Look Ahead to 3 August 2023. The Bank of England's interest rate decision, the set piece for Thursday, it's expected to raise interest rates. The question is how much? I'll show you the chart here of cable.

Sterling steadied against both the euro and dollar on Wednesday ahead of that key meeting, with investors split on the size of the central bank's rate hike after 13 back-to-back hikes. If you spread and widen out the chart, Sterling has climbed almost 6% this year, and it's already set for its biggest annual jump since 2017 due to the central bank's aggressive monetary tithing path. This is to get, of course, consumer prices down.

Inflation is still very high when it comes to volatile energy, food and alcohol and tobacco prices. As of this morning, the market was still pricing in around a 62% chance that the Bank of England will opt for a 25-basis-point hike to interest rates and take the main bank rate to 5.25%.

German trade balance figures

Meanwhile, we've got plenty of data out of China and Germany as well. Starting with China, we've got the Caixin services PMI for June. From Germany, we've got the trade balance figures as well, expectations there for June, 15 billion against a previous reading of 14.4.

From the US, plenty of jobs-related data ahead of their all-important Friday jobs report. We've got initial jobless claims. Also, factory orders for July and the services PMI for July as well.

It gets really busy in Europe in terms of earnings. We've got the LSE reporting, along with pets at home that's seen this dramatic rise and continuation of pet ownership since COVID. And also, we've got NexApp with second-quarter trading numbers. Adidas volatile over Ye From Germany, look out for Adidas' first-half earnings.

We've seen a lot of volatility for Adidas of late, no thanks to Ye. If you recall, Adidas has said it will sell more of its stock of the Ye products in August and reiterated a pledge to donate part of the proceeds to Greeks fighting discrimination, without saying how much it would give. Adidas, if you recall, stopped selling these shoes and Ye products and abandoned its collaboration with the designer Rapper Ye late last year after the artist went on a string of anti-Semitic rants in interviews and on social media.

Also, look out for what Adidas says about the renewal of Manchester United's partnership with Adidas for another decade.

South Korea got Deutsche Lufthansa out with second-quarter earnings. If it appears that anything to go by, Deutsche Lufthansa should be out with strong figures as well as travel resumes its rebound. SOC Gen out with second quarter numbers along with BMW as well.

Not so rosy for Apple

And from the US, the big ones, of course, Apple , third-quarter earnings. Just showing you Apple's chart now. This is an old session stock on the IG platform. Apple is heading, if reports are to be believed, for its biggest sales drop since 2016 as iPhone sales slow. So, we'll keep an eye on that and Amazon as well, because that's the other biggie.

The company based in Washington is expected to report an 8.5 rise in revenues to $131.5 billion from $121.2 billion a year ago. The Seattle, Washington-based company also might update investors on changing behaviour in terms of consumer consumption amid high inflation.

And we've also got ConocoPhillips and Airbnb out with quarter numbers as well.