Thursday preview: ECB, Shell in the spotlight

All eyes on Thursday will be on the European Central Bank which is expected to announce a 75 basis point interest rate hike in interest rates to 2.0%.

As ever, just as important will be ECB President, Christine Lagarde's, post meeting presser and whichever guidance she offers for the most likely path for interest rates going forwards.

Also due out are reading for German consumer confidence in November at 0700 BST, followed by comparable data out of Italy at 0900 BST.

Later in the session, at 1330 BST, the US Department of Commerce will provide a first look at third quarter gross domestic product.

Economists anticipate that GDP will have risen at a quarterly annualised pace of 2.3% after a dip of 0.6% during the previous quarter.

In parallel, Commerce will release preliminary data for durable goods orders in September.

On home shores, the Confederation of British Industry is scheduled to release the results of its Distributive Trades survey covering the month of October and SMMT will publish car and engine manufacturing figures for the same month.

Shell's third quarter results will arrive just as the company's shares attempt to retake levels last seen before the pandemic.

Nonetheless, having clocked in with record profitability over the second quarter, analysts were curious to see whether such a performance could be maintained.

"This inevitably raises the question is to whether Shell can continue to maintain this level of profitability in the second half of the year, given that oil and gas prices have both fallen from their peaks of the last 3 months?," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Hewson also noticed the criticism aroused by the company's meagre investments in renewables even as it announced $6bn of fresh share buybacks alongside second quarter earnings.

The company was also facing the risk of a potential windfall tax on profits on top of the already lofty 65% tax on their UK profits, Hewson noted.

Thursday 27 October

INTERIMS

Airtel Africa , Airtel Africa , HarbourVest Global Private Equity Limited A Shs

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Driver Group, Learning Technologies Group

INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Balfour Beatty, Headlam Group, Morgan Advanced Materials , Next Fifteen Communications, Sanderson Design Group

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Law Debenture Corp.

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Brunner Inv Trust, City of London Inv Trust, JPMorgan Claverhouse Inv Trust

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Continuing Claims (US) (13:30)

Durable Goods Orders (US) (13:30)

ECB Interest Rate (EU) (13:15)

GFK Consumer Confidence (GER) (07:00)

Gross Domestic Product (US) (13:30)

Initial Jobless Claims (US) (13:30)

Personal Consumption Expenditures (US) (13:30)

Q3

Indivior, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd (ATT) GDR (Reg S), Shell , Shell 'A', Shell 'B', Yamana Gold Inc. NPV (CDI)

IMSS

Lloyds Banking Group

SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

D4T4 Solutions

AGMS

Alumasc Group, Anglesey Mining, Brooks Macdonald Group, City of London Inv Trust, Filtronic, Ovoca Bio (CDI), PCI-PAL, Real Good Food , South32 Limited (DI) , TheWorks.Co.Uk, Tufton Oceanic Assets Limited NPV

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Aveva Group, Inchcape, PPHE Hotel Group Ltd, Unilever

FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Avingtrans, Dechra Pharmaceuticals, Ferguson, Fidelity Asian Values, MJ Gleeson , Mulberry Group, Pacific Horizon Inv Trust, Sylvania Platinum Ltd (DI), Thorpe (F.W.), Wilmington