Inflation should be the dominant theme on Wednesday, with an update after data a month ago showed UK core inflation hitting a 31-year high, while the headline consumer price index also surprisingly held steady at 8.7%, when it had been expected to ease.
Another surprise on the upside could force the Bank of England to hike rates to 5.5% at the meeting next month.
In company news, Severn Trent Water’s first quarter update would have been testing enough even before the near collapse of peer Thames Water.
The views of boss Liv Garfield will be particularly interesting after she recently moved to put herself in Labour’s good books ahead of any change of government by proposing a “new breed of declared social purpose companies”.
Later in the day, Tesla Inc (NASDAQ:TSLA) will take attention as a popular investment on both sides of the Atlantic. Its second-quarter results, released after market close in New York, have been tipped for another earnings beat, despite worries about the effects of its price cuts this year.
At a similar time, investors in Netflix will be eager to see in its results announcement how the streaming giant's crackdown on password sharing impacted its revenue and earnings, with some analysts anticipating a sizeable boost.
Significant announcements
Trading updates: Hargreaves Lansdown PLC (LSE:HL.), Severn Trent PLC (LSE:SVT)
Interims: ASML Holding NV (NASDAQ:ASML), Volvo AB
Finals: Redcentric PLC (AIM:RCN)
US earnings: Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS), International Business Machines Corp, Netflix Inc (NASDAQ:NFLX), Telsa Inc
AGMs: Caledonia Investments (LSE:CLDN) PLC, Edinburgh Investment Trust (LSE:EDIN) PLC, Experian (LSE:EXPN) PLC, Harbourvest Global Private Equity, HICL Infrastructure PLC, Invinity Energy Systems PLC (AIM:IES, OTCQX:IESVF), JPMorgan European Discovery Trust PLC, Mind Gym Ltd, Triple Point VCT 2011 PLC
Economic announcements: Consumer Price Index (UK), Producer Price Index (UK), Retail Price Index (UK), MBA Mortgage Applications (US), Building Permits (US), Housing Starts (US), Crude Oil Inventories (US)