Tuesday preview: US house prices, Whitbread in the spotlight

Investors' attention on Tuesday would be on the US housing sector.

At 1400 BST, Standard&Poor's would publish it Case-Shiller home price surveys for February.

They would be followed at 1500 BST by new home sales data covering that same month and the Conference Board's gauge of consumer confidence for April.

Earlier, at 0700 BST, the Office for National Statistics would release public sector net borrowing figures for the month of March.

At 1000 BST, the Bank of England's Ben Broadbent was to deliver a speech on monetary policy.

On the corporate side of things, UK hospitality group Whitbread was scheduled to publish its full-year results.

Analysts had penciled-in profits before tax of at £379m, which would mark a sharp jump from the £58m achieved during its 2022 financial year.

But UBS analyst Jarrod Castle noted that consensus was more downbeat than him on the outlook for the year ahead, anticipating just at £377m of profits for fiscal 2024, whereas he was expecting £408m.

Hence, he believed the shares would see upwards pressure on the back of the reassuring outlook.

Castle also spied margin for capital returns or an acceleration of the company's roll-out in Germany or the UK.

Whitbread's new boss was also likely to benefit from some goodwill and his comments on the business's strategic plans was another potential positive catalyst.

In the US, Alphabet and Microsoft were due to release their latest quarterly results after the close of trading in New York.

Tuesday 25 April

INTERIMS

AB Dynamics, Associated British Foods, Focusrite

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

JPMorgan Emerging Markets Inv Trust, JPMorgan Mid Cap Inv Trust, Northamber

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

General Electric Co (CDI)

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Consumer Confidence (US) (15:00)

House Price Index (US) (14:00)

New Homes Sales (US) (15:00)

GMS

Coro Energy

FINALS

Avacta Group, Card Factory, Corero Network Security, Dillistone Group, Hvivo, Jadestone Energy, Keystone Law Group , Next 15 Group, Northcoders Group , Oxford Biomedica, Round Hill Music Royalty Fund Limited NPV, Whitbread

IMSS

Lloyds Banking Group

AGMS

Aquis Exchange , Beazley, CLS Holdings, Entain, Globaldata, NATWEST GROUP, Sigmaroc , VH Global Sustainable Energy Opportunities

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

IWG , Jupiter Fund Management , Loungers , Travis Perkins, W.A.G Payment Solutions

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Public Sector Net Borrowing (07:00)