Market Watch

HEAVYWEIGHT stocks from the banking, oil and pharmaceutical sectors will be in the spotlight this week during a busy few days for investors.

Oil majors BP and Shell are set to benefit from improving crude prices when the rivals present their first-quarter figures. Despite the continued glut in refining capacity-depressing margins, average oil costs for the first quarter of 2010 have nearly doubled compared with a year earlier.

Consensus forecasts put underlying profits from BP on Tuesday at around $4.8 billion (3.1bn) – almost double its earnings for the first quarter of 2009.

Similarly, Shell is likely to make gains on last year's $3.3bn (2.1bn) in first-quarter figures on Wednesday.

Taxpayer-backed Lloyds Banking Group fires the starting gun on first-quarter bank results on Tuesday in what is set to be a busy week for the sector.

Royal Bank of Scotland follows with its figures on Wednesday, the same day it holds its annual meeting, and Barclays – already under fire over executive pay concerns – reports on Friday as it prepares to face investors at its yearly investor gathering.

Pharmaceutical firms GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca will provide updates on trading at the start of a year that is expected to be particularly challenging due to increased competition.

GSK, which will post first quarter results on Wednesday, is expected to see the tail end of the swine flu boost, which has given it a much-needed fillip in an otherwise difficult period.

Analysts are pencilling in an 11 per cent rise in profits to 2.1bn in the first quarter, on sales up from 6.77bn to 7.13bn. But Glaxo has already warned of tougher conditions once the swine flu sales benefit falls out.

The group unveiled plans in February for another 4,000 job cuts to save a further 500m.

Rival AstraZeneca, which reports on Thursday, is facing the same issues as cheaper generic rivals put profits under threat and it has announced 8,000 job cuts to trim its operations.

Week ahead

TOMORROW

Lok'nStore (interims); Carphone Warehouse (update)

TUESDAY

N Brown (finals); ARM Holdings, BP, Connaught, Imperial Tobacco, Reckitt Benckiser (interims); Lloyds Banking Group, Premier Foods (updates)

WEDNESDAY

Home Retail (finals); Fenner, GlaxoSmithKline, Shell, Superglass, Virgin Media (interims); Segro (update); Royal Bank of Scotland (AGM)

THURSDAY

Whitbread (finals); AstraZeneca, BAA, BSkyB, Standard Life, Unilever (interims); Barclays, William Hill (updates)

FRIDAY

WPP (update); Barclays (AGM)