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Petrofac (half-year results 30 August)
Everything Petrofac does will occur in the shadow of the fraud investigation currently conducted into the company. It has a strong order backlog, which stood at $14.3 billion at the end of last year, and this will at least help to tide the firm over in the difficult period to come. The real danger remains that it will see the number of contracts it manages fall as renewals fail to come through. This would hit revenues, and then the balance sheet. In all honesty, the business update will play a distant second fiddle to any news on the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.
The current range for Petrofac is 411p to 488p, having held since mid June. With so much negative sentiment hanging over the stock the 500p level would appear to be the limit of the upside at present. Below 411p support at 345p comes into play.