Week ahead: Banks kick off US earnings season; Tesco results due

(Sharecast News) - Next week marks the start of the US earnings season, with banking behemoths Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup among those slated to report. The UK corporate calendar will also pick up again after a quiet post-Easter week, with results due from the likes of Saga and Tesco, and trading updates from Barratt Redrow, Hunting, Rank Group, Dunelm, Rentokil, Ladbrokes owner Entain, recruiter PageGroup, Ashmore, Schroders and tobacco firm Imperial Brands.

As far as housebuilder Barratt's update on Wednesday is concerned, Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "Next week's third-quarter update is likely to strike a cautious tone, with the conflict in Iran bringing a host of challenges for the housebuilder. Higher oil prices look set to bring inflationary pressures to building materials. On top of that, market forecasts for interest rate cuts have flipped to potential rate hikes this year, which is unhelpful for buyer affordability. As a result, don't be surprised to see Barratt's full-year underlying pre-tax profit outlook wound back from prior guidance of £590mn."

For Tesco's full-year results on Thursday, he said easy comparable figures and continued market share gains throughout the year should help flatter performance. "As a result, the nation's largest supermarket is forecast to deliver like-for-like sales growth of over 3%.

"Full-year underlying operating profit guidance was nudged to the top end of its £2.9-£3.1bn target range back in January. But given Tesco's enormous scale, broad product offerings, and cost discipline, this figure still looks a touch conservative. Looking further ahead, investors are keen to hear how the conflict in Iran is expected to impact the group's costs and whether there's been any change in recent customer spending habits."

Also on Thursday, a third-quarter trading update is due from homeware retailer Dunelm.

UBS expects revenue of £476m, up 3% and in line with consensus. The bank said it was confident in Dunelm's ability to continue to drive market share gains and capture gross margin tailwinds, with 3.5% topline growth for FY26.

Across the pond, banks will kick off the earnings season, but first-quarter numbers from Netflix will also be eyed on Thursday.

On the macro front, the latest UK GDP data will be in the spotlight on Thursday, along with eurozone consumer price inflation.