Finance week ahead: Interest rates, Nike, Micron, WH Smith and Currys

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• Deloitte's independent review identified a number of shortcomings in WH Smith's operations for fiscal years 2023–2025

  80% confidence

• Currys is comfortable with market consensus for year-ahead performance

  80% confidence

• Current consensus puts the BoJ main policy rate at 1.25% by the end of 2025

  80% confidence

• Nike now expects annual cost of tariffs to be around $1.5bn, up from a previous estimate of $1bn

  80% confidence

• Bank of America analysts expect Nike to report net sales of $12.15bn and EPS of $0.36 for Q2, reiterated buy rating, and said Q3 revenue guidance will be the key datapoint

  80% confidence

• Currys' fortunes could not contrast with those of WH Smith any more strongly; Currys fought off Elliott's bid and shares now stand at their highest mark in four years, well above Elliott's 67p offer

  80% confidence

• WH Smith's North American unit had substantial growth potential with passenger numbers in air travel forecast to grow 2.5 times before 2050, making the accounting error particularly ironic

  80% confidence

• BoJ Governor Kazuo Ueda is attempting to gently tighten monetary policy to contain inflation and support the yen without snuffing out growth or the ongoing stock market surge; analysts put 50-50 odds on a quarter-point rate increase to 0.75%

  80% confidence

• The ECB has cut quickly and President Lagarde has signalled the main refinancing rate is near the neutral point at 2.15%; markets do not expect any rate change at the December meeting

  80% confidence

• Weakness in GDP, alongside the slowing labour market and the decline in inflation in October, makes Capital Economics more confident in their forecast that the Bank of England will cut interest rates by another 25 basis points to 3.75% on Thursday 18 December

  80% confidence

• WH Smith expects group headline profit before tax to be in the range of £100m to £110m for FY2025

  80% confidence

• Nike has spent the last year cleaning up excess inventory and ramping innovation; Q3 expected to begin a sales inflection benefiting from strong wholesale sell-in, early World Cup demand, and lapping buybacks from wholesalers

  80% confidence

• Carl Cowling's resignation added another level of uncertainty to WH Smith's management and left the group with much work to do in restoring investor confidence

  80% confidence

• Analysts watching Currys' interim results will focus on like-for-like trading trends in UK/Ireland and Nordics, and subscriber growth at iD Mobile toward a 2.5 million year-end target

  80% confidence

• Over the coming years, trillions of dollars will be invested in AI, a significant portion on memory; as the only US-based memory manufacturer, Micron is uniquely positioned to benefit from the AI opportunity

  80% confidence