Welcome to the week ahead, our summary of the forthcoming key company announcements. Companies are no longer obliged to notify the London Stock Exchange (LSE) of results and trading updates, so this list does not claim to be comprehensive. You can read company announcements on at http://announce.ft.com and our daily online news summaries record all key company announcements and business press headlines.
Monday 19 November
Interims: Ffastfill, Majestic Wine, MITIE
Final: Diploma
Trading statements: Chesnara, CLS, FBD, Intertek
EGMs: Lonmin, Petroneft Resources
Economics: Rightmove house prices
Tuesday 20 November
Interims: Accumuli, Big Yellow, British Land, Carclo, CML Microsystems, Eckoh, Energy Assets, Halma, Homeserve, McKay Securities, Renold, Telecom Plus, Vectura
Finals: easyJet, Enterprise Inns, Paragon
AGM: Smiths Group
EGMs: Experian, Glanbia
Shares in budget airline easyJet (EZJ) have been in rapid ascent all this past year and last week hit their highest level since December 2007. That's mainly because the company keeps surprising itself. In March, investors were told to expect smaller half-year losses, but after a decent second half and a drop in the price of jet fuel, full-year results will be better than expected, too. In fact, in a pre-close trading statement in early October, the company's board upgraded pre-tax profit expectations for the financial year to September 2012 to between £310m and £320m compared with the previous expectation of a pre-tax profit of £280m to £300m. These record profits will have been achieved even though the company had to absorb an additional £230m in fuel costs in the period.
After such a dramatic rerating - the share price is up 46 per cent this year - investors will be keeping a close eye on how the airline has been faring in the past six weeks in terms of the airline's operational performance, managing costs and making any further improvements in revenue management and marketing. This is important given that the near term economic outlook remains highly uncertain and easyJet's unit airport costs are expected to increase by around £80m for the 2013 financial year, due to significantly above inflation rises in charges at regulated airports in Spain and Italy.