Week Ahead: 12-16 Aug

Monday 12 August

Interims: BATM Advanced Communications, Delcam, Prudential, SVG Capital

Trading statement: Mitie

AGM: Triad

Tuesday 13 August

Interims: Mears, Michael Page, Resolution, 1Spatial, Synthomer, Tribal

AGM: Castings

Economics: ONS House prices, Consumer prices index, Retail price index

Wednesday 14 August

Interims: Balfour Beatty, Capital & Regional, CLS, ENRC, Interserve, Lookers, Rentokil Initial, Subsea 7

AGM: Eckoh

Economics: Bank of England minutes, UK jobless rate

Thursday 15 August

Prelim: Rank

Interims: AZ Electronics, Cineworld, Gem Diamonds, Ophir Energy, PV Crystalox Solar, Sig, Skyepharma

Trading statement: Imperial Tobacco

Economics: Retail sales

Solar-wafer manufacturer PV Crystalox Solar (PVCS) has been through the mill, but there could be light at the end of the tunnel for shareholders.

Firstly, the business is now being run with the aim of conserving cash in view of the challenging trading environment. This has led to a focus on cost control and inventory management, including trading of excess polysilicon as opportunities arise. The company has also sold off its facility at Bitterfeld, Germany to local management in return for a cash payment of €12.3m (£10.5m) from PV Crystalox. This looks a sensible move as the plant has operated in idle mode and has been racking up annual cash losses of around €9m. A disposal is much preferable to a shutdown as it reduces cash outflows, gives certainty over their timing and can be completed in a much shorter timescale.

Secondly, the EU Commission has enforced provisional anti-dumping duties on solar products imported from China. Unless the two sides reach an agreement this month, the EU Commission has stated that the anti-dumping tax rate will rise to 47.6 per cent and will remain in force until December, after which the EU Commission could impose permanent tariffs on photovoltaic products made in China. Anti-competitive practices by Far Eastern solar wafer manufacturers led to sharp falls in the spot wafer price, which hit PV Crystalox. Encouragingly, spot market price declines appear to have halted and that there has been "some modest recovery in prices across the value chain since the beginning of the year".

Thirdly, the company will be returning 7.25p a share to shareholders shortly, details of which should be forthcoming at next week's results. Moreover, if trading has stabilised news of a substantial cash return could be very supportive of the share price.

Shares in Cineworld (CINE) have been riding high and with good reason. Trading in the first 26 weeks of the financial year has been strong, with group revenues up 22 per cent overall including like-for-like sales growth of over 10 per cent at the Cineworld Cinemas. The Picturehouse chain has seen 12.9 per cent sales growth in the same period. This performance has been driven by admissions some 20 per cent higher than last year.

In terms of the development pipeline, the cinema group is on track to open a new nine-screen cinema at Wembley, a 10-screen replacement cinema in Gloucester and take over the existing IMAX cinema at the Glasgow Science Centre. Analysts at Cannacord Genuity expect the strong momentum from the first half to continue "into the third quarter where there are weaker comparatives due to the impact of the London Olympics on scheduling last year". Ahead of half-year results, analysts expect adjusted pre-tax profit of £46m and EPS of 22.6p for 2013, up from £39m and 20.3p in 2012. On that basis, the shares are currently trading on a forward PE ratio of 17.

Friday 16 August

Interim: Alpha Pyranees

Trading statement: Essar Energy

Shares going ex-dividend on 14 August