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MARKET COMMENT
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Gordon Brown takes centre stage next week. He is due to deliver his pre Budget statement on Wednesday afternoon. Attention will be focused on any reduction in economic growth forecasts and any tax increases required to pay for them. Abbey National (LSE: ANL) is due to deliver a trading statement on Wednesday. This will be the company's first major announcement since Luqman Arnold, its new CEO, was appointed a month ago. An indications of his plans for the company, which has spurned many takeover attempts in the last year or so, will be the main talking point. Chrysalis (LSE: CHS) reports full-year figures on Monday. The broadcaster and music company said in August that its radio business continued to outperform the market. Furthermore revenue at its radio unit has seen like-for-like sales growth of 9.5%. Chrysalis said that this performance compare very favourably with the industry, which has seen revenues decline some 5% over the same period. Daily Mail & General Trust (LSE: DMGT), which reports full-year figures on Thursday, also has a significant interest in the commercial radio market. However, its radio operation, DMG Radio, is focussed primarily on the Australian market. The company said Radio Australia is starting to experience some recovery in profit from last year's depressed levels. Newspapers, which are the company's main business, have been affected by the advertising slump. The company forecast that advertising sales would remain weak across all its titles. Carlton Communications (LSE: CCM) and Granada (LSE: GAA) report on Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. The two independent television companies have agreed a merger, though that union is conditional on clearance by the regulators. The recent Queen's Speech paves the way for a successful conclusion to the merger. Both companies should provide updates on their impending union. Allders (LSE: ADS) should flesh out details of its bid approach when it reports finals on Tuesday. The property developer Minerva (LSE: MNR) confirmed it had thrashed out a deal with the struggling retailer. In a recent update Allders said trading had been significantly below expectations. Like-for-like sales were 5.1% below that of last year. That does not compare favourably with its peers such as Debenhams (LSE: DEB), which has seen same store sales rise 4.8%. The story is expected to be much better at New Look (LSE: NEW). It delivers interim results on Tuesday. New Look has benefited from the economic slowdown due to its specialisation in affordable clothing for younger shoppers. It expects pre-tax profits to be not less than £44m, an improvement of 63% on last year. There are also results from easyJet (LSE: EZJ) and the embattled tour operator MyTravel (LSE: MT.). Both companies report on Tuesday. EasyJet has grown both organically and also through acquisition. Its load factor, a measure of efficiency, continues to improve and the company has also introduced new services from its Paris hub. Meanwhile the picture could not be more different at MyTravel. The company has found a hole in its accounts relating to the way it has accounted for certain revenue items. MyTravel will pass on its final dividend and should provide some comment on those widely reported break-up plans. Notable results
Monday: Acambis, Chrysalis, Imperial Tobacco, Trifast & Workspace Group
Tuesday: Carlton Communications, De La Rue, Kingston Communications, MyTravel, National Grid Transco, New Look & easyJet
Wednesday: Allders, British Land, Granada & ICAP. Abbey National trading statement.
Thursday: BPB, Daily Mail & General Trust, Johnson Matthey, Pennon Group, Plasmon
Friday: Antonov