Tuesday preview: Vodafone and Prudential interims expected to be solid

Although a relatively quiet day for macroeconomic data, Tuesday sees a handful of the FTSE 100's heavyweights reporting on their financial progress.

Vodafone is expected to deliver a solid second quarter as it reports its interim results, with European rivals having reported strong growth improvements lately.

Deutsche Bank expects organic service revenue growth of 0.9% in the second quarter, indicating a 10 basis-point (bps) headline improvement but closer to a 60 bps 'underlying' pickup compared to the first three months of the financial year.

"Other European mobile operators have reported a growth improvement more than twice as high so VOD expectations appear well-adjusted," Deutsche said.

"Confirmation that capex will fall next year, should further support confidence in VOD's dividend."

Forecasting a lesser 0.7% organic service revenue growth, UBS predicts first-half EBITDA to be down 3.4% to £5.68bn, implying a broadly stable margin at 28.3% with the reported declines driven by forex moves.

"We see a positive trajectory going forward helped by growth in mobile data/market repair and we expect service revenues to accelerate from Q3-16 onwards to +1.3% as Germany improves," the Swiss bank said.

UBS is also bullish about Prudential, which is scheduled to post a third-quarter trading update on new business sales, new business profit and asset flows across its business units.

Given volatile markets in China, a key area of focus in the statement will be the resilience of sales in Asia, in particular Hong Kong.

The report will also be scrutinised for updates on the progress of the US Department of Labor's new proposed fiduciary standards for the sale of variable annuities in the US.

The media sector will offer some more retail investor interest, with ITV shareholders crossing their fingers that England’s early exit from the Rugby World Cup has not hit advertising revenue at the rights-holding broadcaster.

Liberum predicts around 8% advertising revenue growth for the third quarter, leading to nine-month growth of 6%.

“The risk to this number is more on the upside than downside,” the broker said. “Previous discussions with media buyers suggested ITV had a strong September, helped by the Rugby World Cup and comments from newspaper groups have suggested a relative improvement recently in advertising trends, which should be more pronounced in TV.”

Tuesday 10 November

INTERIMS
Aveva Group, BTG, DCC, Energy Assets Group, Experian, Hayward Tyler Group, Land Securities Group, Liontrust Asset Management , National Grid, Oxford Instruments, Penna Consulting, Premier Foods, Software Radio Technology, Speedy Hire, Trifast, Vodafone Group

IMSS
ITV, Prudential, Wolseley

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Travis Perkins

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Import and Export Price Indexes (US) (13:30)
Wholesales Inventories (US) (00:00)

GMS
Hutchison China Meditech Ltd

EGMS
International Public Partnerships Ltd., Societatea Commerciala De Distributie Si Furnizare A Energiei Electrice S.A. GDR (Reg S)

AGMS
A&J Mucklow Group, Redrow

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS
Capital & Counties Properties

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
BRC Sales Monitor (00:01)