Tuesday preview: US elections, Associated British Foods in focus

All eyes on Tuesday will be on the US elections, even if the results won't start to be known - under a best case scenario - until the next day.

Many observers believe Joe Biden will take the White House, although nobody knows for sure, while Republicans appear to be on course to retain control of the Senate, but only by the slimmest of margins and again, here too no one is certain of the result.

In any case, equity strategists appear to be for the most part upbeat on the medium-term prospects for the economy and share prices.

There does however appear to be agreement that a drawn out process for confirming the election results is one scenario which could result in pronounced volatility in stockmarkets in the very near-term, regardless of the final results.

Against that backdrop, at 0930 GMT, IHS Markit will publish the final results of its factory and services sector Purchasing Managers' Indices for October, both of which are expected to reveal a pronounced slowdown in the pace of growth from the prior month.

Associated British Foods is the biggest UK corporate that is scheduled to update financial markets on Tuesday.

For the food ingredient specialist's full-year ending in September, Morgan Stanely analyst Geoff Rudell has penciled-in a 32.9% drop in Primark's like-for-likes, offset by growth of 3.2% for sugar sales, of 2.7% in grocery, and of 1.9% in both Agriculture and Ingredients.

Group revenues meanwhile were pegged at £14.3bn, versus consensus at £14.4bn, while profits before tax were seen coming in at £880m (consensus: £835m), for earnings per share of 80.9p (consensus: 81.5).

To take note of, ABF had already published a lengthy pre-close trading update about a week before and for its Primark division during the previous session.

For Weir Group's trading update, Morgan Stanley's Robert J.Davies expects investor focus to be on the expected growth trajectory in the Mining aftermarket, the outlook for capital outlays in 2021, delivery of the large iron bridge contract and on any disruptions to the ESCO business from Covid-19 related site access issues as well as management's priorities for portfolio development or allocating capital.

Tuesday 03 November

IMS

Weir Group

INTERIMS

Warehouse Reit

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Auto Sales (US) (20:30)

Industrial Production (GER) (07:00)

GMS

Cathay International Holdings Ltd.

FINALS

Associated British Foods, CAP-XX Limited, Up Global Sourcing Holdings

EGMS

Alcentra Euorpean Floating Rate Income Fund Ltd Red Ord Shs

AGMS

KCR Residential Reit

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

PMI Construction (09:30)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Redde Northgate