What's in store today...

Rhian Nicholson
17.11.09 00:01

Budget airline easyJet (EZJ) is likely to post pre-tax profits of around �43 million - a sharp drop on the �110 million posted last year following higher fuel costs.

It carried 45.2 million passengers in the nine months to September 2009 and in its latest July update it expected pre-tax profits in the range of �25-50 million.

Although the figures will be far lower than last year's, easyJet would do well to report a profit given most airlines have suffered sharp losses. Of interest will be whether easyJet follows its rival Ryanair in offering a dividend.

Tony Shepard, analyst at Charles Stanley, believes easyJet has proved resilient and will continue to do so: "For 2010, profits could recover strongly to about �160 million which would give the share a prospective P/E of about 14%. The share price is about 16% higher than a year ago which is an excellent performance."

Things are expected to be looking up for property giant British Land (BLND) in the third quarter although it will take a while for positive revaluations to filter through given the turmoil of real-estate slump.

Analysts are expecting net asset value to move to around 370p after it sold off its Broadgate office development in recent months.

Tina Cook, analyst at Charles Stanley, commented: "We anticipate in line interim results from British Land with a relatively optimistic outlook statement on a slowdown in the decline of its portfolio valuation, a firming of UK property yields and improved investor sentiment."

Quintessentially British label Burberry will also step into the spotlight. The retailing half of the business has progressed nicely, but its wholesales half has fared worse which could impact sales figures for the first half of the year.

Interactive Investor will also be attending the Barratt Development (BDEV) AGM today - be sure to come back in later for the low down.

Results

(Finals) Care UK

(Interims) Big Yellow Group, British Land, Burberry Group, Imaginatik, Intelek, Oxford Instruments, VT Group, Smith Group, ICAP

AGMs

Barratt Development, Smiths Group

Dividend payment date

(Final) Henderson EuroTrust

(Interim) Aviva

What's in store today...

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