Tuesday preview: UK public sector borrowing, Kingfisher in the spotlight

Investors' focus on Tuesday would continue to be trained on the global banking sector and financial markets' reaction to the Credit Suisse rescue at the weekend.

Nevertheless, trading might well be subdued as market participants waited on the result of the Federal Reserve's two-day policy meeting the next day.

Against that backdrop, at 0700 GMT the Office for National Statistics was to release public sector net borrowing figures for February.

They would be followed at 1000 GMT by the ZEW institute's economic confidence index for Germany covering the month of March.

At 1400 GMT, the US National Association of Realtors would follow with a reading for existing home sales in February.

On the corporate side of things, do-it-yourself retailer Kingfisher was to release its full-year results.

The company's latest guidance was for profits of between £730-760m on £12.9bn in sales.

But costs were likely to have risen versus 2021 and guidance for 2023 would be "key", said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

Tuesday 21 March

INTERIMS

SCS Group , YouGov

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

Unilever

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Existing Home Sales (US) (14:00)

ZEW Survey (EU) - Economic Sentiment (10:00)

ZEW Survey (GER) - Current Situation (10:00)

ZEW Survey (GER) - Economic Sentiment (10:00)

FINALS

Alliance Pharma, Aptitude Software Group , Boku, Inc (DI) Reg S Cat 3/144A, Equals Group , Ergomed , Fintel, Gamma Communications, Henry Boot, Kape Technologies, Kingfisher, Luceco , Luceco , Oxford Nanopore Technologies , Quixant, Science Group , Staffline Group, The Pebble Group, Tissue Regenix Group, Zotefoams

AGMS

BlackRock Sustainable American Income Trust, BlackRock Sustainable American Income Trust, Gresham House Renewable Energy VCT 1 , Gresham House Renewable Energy VCT 2, React Group , Starvest, Sureserve Group, Wynnstay Group

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Public Sector Net Borrowing (07:00)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Impax Asset Management Group