The UK's troubled high street banks top the reporting bill next week.
The deluge of company reports continues next week, with the banks and the big insurers leading the fight for our attention.
Bring on the banks
The FTSE's five big banks will all release interim results in the coming week, starting with HSBC Holdings (LSE: HSBA) on Monday, one of the ones that survived without needing a bailout from kindly taxpayers. HSBC never sank into loss the way others did during the crisis, and this year it's forecast to get reasonably close to pre-crunch EPS levels -- and even pay a 4% dividend!
Barclays (LSE: BARC), which also managed to stay in private hands, will report on Tuesday. Again, Barclays avoided losses, but did need a lot of fresh private capital to keep going. EPS this year is expected to be about half pre-crisis levels, but there won't be much in the way of dividends for a while yet -- on a still-depressed share price, analysts are expecting only 2.5%.
Wednesday will bring half-year results from Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN), which avoided the carnage by basically doing almost no business in the US, UK or Europe, and it looks like it's on for a nice growth in earnings this year, plus a 3% dividend.
And then come the two bailed out banks, with Lloyds Banking Group (LSE: LLOY) delivering six-months figures on Thursday, and Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS) doing the same on Friday. Both crashed to big losses during the crunch, and both are slowly limping back to some sort of health. With UK taxpayers owning approximately 40% and 70% of these two respectively, we should all be looking to see when our involuntary investment is likely to break even.
Insurance too
The big insurance companies will be reporting interim results too, starting with Legal & General (LSE: LGEN) on Wednesday, followed by Aviva (LSE: AV) and RSA Insurance (LSE: RSA) on Thursday, and then Prudential (LSE: PRU) and Old Mutual (LSE: OML) on Friday. Interim results from Standard Life (LSE: SL) are due the following Wednesday.
The whole insurance sector has been shunned by investors of late, and there are, at least on the face of it, some pretty astounding dividend yields to be had. That assumes, of course, that analysts' forecasts are near the mark.
Some of the expected dividends are really not very well covered, but Legal & General's forecast 5% dividend should be more than twice covered, and Old Mutual's mooted 3.7% is covered nearly 3 times. And just look at Aviva -- its forecast dividend is a twice covered 7%! OK, there's more to insurance than just that, but the sector has got a bit of an oversold look about it.
Diggers and delvers
Mining is perhaps a bit out of fashion these days (unless it's gold they're digging up), but there will be some interims from this sector coming too, starting with gold miner Centamin Egypt (LSE: CEY), silver producer Fresnillo (LSE: FRES), and diversified miner Xstrata (LSE: XTA) on Tuesday.
Iron ore producer Ferrexpo (LSE: FXPO) will follow on Wednesday, together with Yamana Gold (LSE: YAU), and we'll have figures from Randgold Resources (LSE: RRS) and global giant Rio Tinto (LSE: RIO) on Thursday.
And the rest...
Other big companies with results next week will include housebuilder Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW) on Wednesday, and full-year forecasts aren't great considering the seriously depressed state of the UK housing market.
Major foods and household products manufacturer Unilever (LSE: ULVR) will report on Thursday, and it's such a resilient and defensive sector that the company has seen nary a hiccup during the economic downturn -- a 4% full-year dividend is expected.
Notable announcements next week:
Monday: Arena Leisure, Hammerson, HSBC Holdings, Hutchison China Meditech, Intertek Group, Keller Group, Management Consulting Group, Senior, Ultra Electronics Holdings, Xchanging, XP Power,
Tuesday: Barclays, Capital Shopping Centres, Centamin Egypt, Collins Stewart Hawkpoint, Devro, Drax Group, Fresnillo, Meggitt, Millennium & Copthorne Hotels, Moneysupermarket.com Group, SDL, Tullett Prebon, Weir Group, Xstrata, Zotefoams
Wednesday: Capital & Counties Properties, Ferrexpo, GKN, Legal & General Group, Rightmove, Taylor Wimpey, Vernalis, Yamana Gold, Next
Thursday: Aviva, Catlin Group, Cobham, F&C Inv Trust, Inmarsat, Ladbrokes, Lloyds Banking Group, Novae Group, Randgold Resources, Rio Tinto, Robert Walters, RSA Insurance Group, Schroders, Spirent Communications, StatPro Group, Unilever, British Sky Broadcasting Group
Friday: BBA Aviation, Brammer, Logica, Old Mutual, Playtech, Premier Foods, Prudential, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Smith & Nephew, Stanley Gibbons Group, William Hill, Bellway
Fool comment on this week's news:
> The Motley Fool owns shares in Standard Chartered.
