The Week Ahead (3-7 March) - AI Sentiment, NFP, UK earnings season
It was another strong week for the European markets, with the STOXX 600 making new all-time highs.
The S&P 500 is a different story and is down by over 2% this week as concerns around AI prospects have cooled sentiment and taken the major US indices to 6-week lows.
Tesla (NSQ:TSLA) is down by 14% in five days. Talismanic CEO Elon Musk - officially the world’s richest man - has been working with the Trump administration and continuing to make headlines on a daily basis. But the company has also seen a very sharp drop in EU and UK sales. Competition from BYD has intensified, and Musk’s political activity may be alienating some potential customers.
NVIDIA (NSQ:NVDA) also had a tough week, down 11%. Revenues continue to grow at an explosive pace but sentiment is more fragile after the release of cheap software by Chinese AI upstart DeepSeek. Nvidia’s Q4 earnings did beat expectations and full-year revenue more than doubled to $130.5 billion. This stock remains the bellwether for investor sentiment around AI.
The FTSE has been solid again, up 1%, with many FTSE-100 components reporting results recently. Rolls-Royce Holdings (LON:RR.) made an important contribution, up 19% following a strong set of results that also saw it announce a £1bn buyback and the payment of dividends for the first time since Covid-19.
In the calendar for the week ahead, we have US non-farm payrolls to look forward to along with a slew of big-cap UK company announcements.
With non-farm payrolls, it is expected that the United States will record the creation of another 133,000 jobs. Job growth has been steady and the unemployment rate is stable at 4%.
In the UK, some of the announcements that I’ll be watching out for include the likes of Greggs (LON:GRG), Reach (LON:RCH) and TT electronics (LON:TTG). Once again there will be no shortage of results for us to review.
Economic Calendar
Monday 3rd | ||
09:00 | EU/Germany | PMI Manufacturing |
09:30 | UK | Consumer Credit/M4 Money Supply/Mortgage Approvals |
09:30 | UK | PMI Manufacturing |
10:00 | EU | Consumer Price Index |
14:45 | US | PMI Manufacturing |
15:00 | US | Construction Spending |
15:00 | US | ISM Manufacturing |
Tuesday 4th | ||
10::00 | EU | Unemployment Rate |
15:00 | US | Factory Orders |
Wednesday 5th | ||
09:00 | EU | PMI Composite |
09:30 | UK | PMI Composite |
14:45 | US | PMI Composite |
Thursday 6th | ||
09:30 | UK | PMI Construction |
10:00 | EU | Producer Price Index |
10:00 | EU | Retail Sales |
13:30 | US | Initial Jobless Claims |
Friday 7th | ||
07:00 | UK | Halifax House Price Index |
07:00 | Germany | Factory Orders |
10:00 | EU | GDP |
13:30 | US | Non-Farm Payrolls |
Companies Reporting
UK Trading Updates | UK Financial Results | International Financial Results | |
Monday 3 Mar | Bunzl plc (BNZL) Burford Capital Ltd (BUR) Quartix Technologies plc (QTX) Senior plc (SNR) | ||
Tuesday 4 Mar | Ashtead (AHT) Spirent (SPT) | Abrdn plc (ABDN) Apax Global Alpha Limited (APAX) Bakkavor Group Plc (BAKK) Beazley plc (BEZ) Blackbird (BIRD) Flutter Entertainment (FLTR) Fresnillo (FRES) Greggs Plc (GRG) Inchcape plc (INCH) International Workplace Group Plc (IWG) Intertek Group plc (ITRK) Johnson Service Group plc (JSG) Keller Group (KLR) Kitwave Group Ltd (KITW) Origin Enterprises PLC (OGN) Oxford Nanopore Technologies plc (ONT) PCI-PAL PLC (PCIP) Reach plc (RCH) SEPLAT Energy Plc (SEPL) Spirent Communications plc (SPT) Synectics plc (SNX) TT Electronics plc (TTG) Weir Group plc (WEIR) | Crowdstrike ($CRWD) Target ($TGT) |
Wednesday 5 Mar | AssetCo (ASTO) Breedon Group plc (BREE) Dowlais Group plc (DWL) Foxtons Group plc (FOXT) Ibstock plc (IBST) Netcall (NET) Ricardo (RCDO) | JD.com ($JD) Adidas (€ADSD) | |
Thursday 6 Mar | Admiral Group (ADM) Coats Group plc (COA) Dalata Hotel Group plc (DAL) Elementis plc (ELM) Endeavour Mining plc (EDV) Entain plc (ENT) Funding Circle PLC (FCH) Grafton Group (GFTU) Greencoat Renewables plc (GRP) Harbour Energy plc (HBR) Hunting plc (HTG) ITV plc (ITV) Lancashire Holdings (LRE) Melrose Industries plc (MRO) PageGroup plc (PAGE) Reckitt Benckiser Group Plc (RKT) Rentokil Initial Plc (RTO) Schroder Oriental Income Fund (SOI) Schroders plc (SDR) Spire Healthcare Group plc (SPI) Vesuvius plc (VSVS) Vistry Group Plc (VTY) | Broadcom ($AVGO) Costco ($COST) | |
Friday 7 Mar | Just Group plc (JUST) Stelrad Group plc (SRAD |
Disclaimer
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5 comments
Finding these week ahead articles really useful. Keep it going Stockopedia!
Hugely helpful ... thank you.
Flippin heck - lots to look at guys.
Crowdstrike Holdings (NSQ:CRWD) has fallen $68 from recent highs but higher than the crash after the airline etc shut down issue (Microsoft involved also but have not followed up on the story). All AI / tech being taken down this week, which sentiment said it would on even good results. So a buying opportunity or bale out. I baled out so can have powder to buy back and sort the good from the aspirational - maybe. I know this is 'trading' rather than 'investing' but my 'coffee' can is full and my New Year clear out was not followed through.
Rule 1 don't lose money - Rule 2 - remember Rule 1 (Mr Buffett).
Selling is far harder than buying - and I don't have the mental tool to deal with it. Part of the problem is I don't want the 'tool' - can set stop losses etc, watch 'dead crosses' etc but still hope my ego (sorry DYOR) proves the market incorrect - fool.
End of days it's fun - fun being a fool beating the bad guys. Just don't bet the farm. (oops sorry politically sensitive).
Very high valuation on traditional metics for Crowdstrike Holdings (NSQ:CRWD) indeed.In the cybersec world i'm assuming their products are top of the heap of cybersec companies.Cybersecurity is definitely extremely important, especially in the current state of the world geopolitcally.
The US takes a whole different mindset to my post covid journey in investing on our much loved SCVR.
STMicroelectronics NV (NYQ:STM) alert triggered. DYOR for me is reading Stockos summary and comments and Seeking Alpha. Fell of a cliff in 07/24 from $40 to 24$. Alert told me the base was (maybe) in and could be a good compounder from here.
The I looked at the market cap - 17bn - well at least you wont lose your shirt on it - does stuff and someone likes the stuff.
So a different market by far.
But wait its Netherlands and Semi-conductors - don't see the European Union changing anything anytime soon so slow decline but the Nordics are serious investments Saab AB (STO:SAAB B) and maybe now GERMANY has "woken up" so energy and defence sectors change.
This is a wealth growth website - not a charity contribution site. Once you have it you can do whatever you like with your dosh.