Friday preview: Fed symposium, Computacenter in the spotlight
First thing on Friday morning, traders will be busy scanning for any headlines concerning China-US trade talks in Washington.
Assuming no surprises, positive or negative, the spotlight will quickly shift to the US central bank's annual Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, later in the day.
On Wednesday, the minutes of the Federal Reserve's last policy meeting surprised some observers, due to the breadth and depth of the topics discussed on that occasion, including the potential impact on the economy of heightened trade tensions, the implications of the flattening bond yield curve and how to proceed in the next downturn.
Hence, it was impossible to dismiss the potential for further surprises outright.
On the data front, a reading on durable goods orders in the States for the month of July was set to be published, at 1330 BST, and it could move markets.
The Belgian central bank's business confidence gauge for August will follow, at 1400 BST, and will also merit attention, to the extent that it sometimes anticipates movements in the better-known, and very widely-followed, business confidence index for Germany compiled each month by the IFO institute.
Of course, with the bank holiday around the corner, trading volumes in both equity and currency markets are likely to be lower than usual.
Meanwhile, and in the corporate patch, Computacenter is among the handful of companies that is set to release their results at the end of the week.
Following a positive update in July, in which the IT specialist said it was witnessing strong momentum, particularly in Germany, according to analysts markets are expecting a solid set of half-year figures.
Significantly, as those at UBS pointed out, sector peers Softcat and Bechtle had said much the same, indicating that Computacenter was benefiting from a broader trend.
Nevertheless, the Swiss broker was keen for an update on the firm's UK outsourcing business following slow growth in the firs three months of the year.
It was also hoping for news from the company of progress on its offshoring capabilities and on potential M&A transactions.
Results from Kingspan were also scheduled for Friday, with UBS predicting that the building materials supplier would post first half like-for-like sales growth of 4%, driven by M&A, the timing of Easter and easier comparables.
EBITA growth meanwhile was pegged at 8%, albeit alongside margins slipping by 0.2 percentage points to 9.9%.
According to analyst Gregor Kuglitsch, the market appeared to be pricing in some upside risk to the company's full-year EBITA.
Friday August 24
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
Durable Goods Orders (US) (13:30)
Gross Domestic Product (GER) (07:00)
UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS
BBA Mortgage Lending Figures (09:30)
FINALS
Byotrol
INTERIMS
Computacenter, Henry Boot, Kingspan Group
INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Independent Inv Trust, Microgen, Octopus Titan VCT
QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE
APQ Global Limited, Primary Health Properties, Tetragon Financial Group Limited
SPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Artemis Alpha Trust
EGMS
Infrastructure India, PJSC Lukoil ADR
AGMS
Naspers Ltd. ADR
FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE
Bloomsbury Publishing, CMC Markets, Downing One VCT , GB Group, Latham (James), Micro Focus International