Tuesday preview: Light economic and corporate calendar may see lull in selling

The economic calendar for Tuesday was quite sparse, which might provide a respite from selling for global financial markets ahead of Fed chair Janet Yellen´s semi-annual testimony before her country´s Congress due the next day.

From Wednesday onwards, investors would also be on watch for the possible release of the latest Chinese data on money supply dynamics in the Asian giant.

In the UK, the British Retail Consortium would update investors on the sector´s total sales in the month of January, alongside fresh data from the Office for National Statistics on the UK´s trade deficit for December.

Meanwhile, in Germany the country´s statistics office was expected to announce that industrial production grew 0.5% month-on-month in December.

Stateside, the National Federation of Independent Businesses´ optimism index for January was set for release, alongside the Fed´s JOLTS index on hob openings in the US labour market in December.

Data on US wholesale inventories for the month of December were also set to be published.

Back on the corporate front, voice-based and electronic dealer broker ICAP was set to report on its progress during the third quarter.

Numis analyst Jonathan Goslin expected the firm to unveil an 11% drop in total revenues for the second half, with sales in its global broking unit expected to fall 15% and that in its electronic markets unit by another 11%.

Tuesday 09 February

INTERIMS
Redrow

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE
IBM Corp.

GMS
Gail (India) Ltd GDR (Reg S)

FINALS
Bank Pekao SA GDS (Reg S), New Europe Property Investments

EGMS
Vast Resources

AGMS
F&C Capital & Income Inv Trust, TUI AG Reg Shs (DI)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Mitchells & Butlers