Wednesday preview: US Fed, Barclays in the spotlight

All eyes on Wednesday will be firmly on the US Federal Reserve as rate-setters meet to decide on monetary policy.

No change in policy is expected, nor are any signals that 'tapering' of the Fed's bond purchases are night.

Nevertheless, economists at Barclays Research said: "While we strongly doubt that participants have seen enough progress to signal tapering is forthcoming, we think the Fed’s communication will become incrementally more hawkish in the assessment ofthe balance of risks."

On home shores meanwhile, the spotlight will be on the results of Nationwide's house price survey for July.

Across the Channel, survey results for Italian and French consumer confidence in July are due out, alongside another survey for August covering Germany.

For Barclays's second quarter, UBS analyst Jason Napier has penciled-in adjusted profits before tax of £1.80bn.

Napier is 4% ahead of the analyst consensus on profits, due to his expectation for a larger impairment credit in the quarter than other analysts were anticipating.

Total income meanwhile is seen dipping 1.0% to £5.34bn, split between approximately £1.87 of interest income and £3.4bn of non interest income.

Pre-provision profits were pegged to come in at £1.51bn, against consensus on £1.68bn.

Barclays's common equity Tier one capital ratio was seen coming in at 14.4%.

The analyst said he anticipated Barclays's commercial and investment banking arm proved "resilient" during the quarter, helped by higher market volatility.

Nonetheless, Napier is also expecting questions from investors around the lender's flexibility on costs in the CIB in the event of weakness in revenues.

On another front, the analyst said: "we're watchful for higher-than-forecast opex and NIM-compression in CC&P from marketing spend and promotional rates as drivers of future volume growth (notwithstanding which we really like the earnings growth potential from the cards and payments businesses)."

To take note of, in the background, investors will be digesting the latest quarterly earnings figures out overnight from Apple and Microsoft.

Wednesday 28 July

INTERIMS

Aptitude Software Group , Barclays, British American Tobacco, Conduit Holdings Limited Com Shs (DI), Getbusy, HUTCHMED (China) Limited, MusicMagpie, Primary Health Properties, Quartix Technologies, Rathbone Brothers, Rio Tinto, Smurfit Kappa Group (CDI), St James's Place

QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE

Marsh & Mclennan Cos Inc.

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)

GFK Consumer Confidence (GER) (07:00)

Gross Domestic Product (US) (13:30)

MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)

Q2

GlaxoSmithKline, Lancashire Holdings Limited

GMS

Telit Communications, TP Group

FINALS

Hargreaves Services, Shearwater Group

EGMS

Triple Point Income VCT D

AGMS

Alien Metals Limited NPV (DI), Aquila Services Group, Card Factory, Chariot Limited, Cropper (James), JPMorgan Japan Small Cap Growth & Income, Reabold Resources, Staffline Group, Ted Baker, Triad Group, Trifast, Triple Point Income VCT E

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

BRC Shop Price Index (00:01)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Tatton Asset Management

Q1

Wizz Air Holdings