The torch has been lit, the first medals have been won and the Games of the 28th Olympiad are officially underway in Paris. That means a lot of my week ahead will be spent sobbing at the television (my reaction to sporting endeavour and success can be quite alarming).
In between, I will try and find time to digest the fair number of financial results which are due to be published this week (see table below). After Alphabet’s numbers caused the US tech sector to stumble last Thursday, it will be interesting to see whether Microsoft, Apple or Meta perform any better (you can read Mark’s review of Meta in last week’s Week Ahead). And joining the ranks US tech stocks reporting this week is ARM, the British chipmaker which, last September, chose to list on Nasdaq rather than the London Stock Exchange.
Speaking of which, the LSE will be sharing its own interim numbers, alongside cohort of big British stocks. Among them, BAE Systems and Rolls Royce, which we compared in our stock analysis workshop a couple of weeks ago. The verdict from our comparison (which you can read in more detail here or rewatch via this link) is that BAE Systems looks like the more enticing investment option right now, what with its strong exposure to the in vogue defence industry and the fact that the valuation at Rolls Royce is starting to look a little spicy.
| UK Interim Results | US quarterly results | |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Quartix Trifast |
McDonalds |
| Tuesday | BP ConvaTec Fresnillo Inchape St James’s Place Standard Chartered |
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Amazon Merck PayPal Pfizer Microsoft Mondelez Starbucks |
| Wednesday | HSBC Hutchinson China Meditech Rathbones Reach Rio Tinto Shaftesbury Taylor Wimpey |
Boeing Mastercard Kraft Heinz Arm Meta |
| Thursday | BAE Systems Coats London Stock Exchange Mondi Rolls Royce Schroders Vesuvius |
Apple Intel |
| Friday | Chevron Exxon Mobil |
US chipmakers
WhenArm Holdings (NSQ:ARM) picked Nasdaq for its return to the public markets, it sought an Nvidia-like valuation of almost 20 times the $2.7bn in revenue it had generated in 2022. In the event, the company listed with a market cap of $54bn - right at the top of its target range - and its share price has climbed steadily since then.
Which means that…
