LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Investors' focus on Wednesday will remain firmly on the oil patch where the US Department of Energy will release its weekly inventory statistics.
They will also be scrutinising the news headlines out overnight for any policy initiatives out of Washington or regulators to alleviate the shortage of storage space or to curb production.

Among other details of that report, said analysts at DWS, traders would be looking for signs of lower refinery activity on the back of stil depressed demand from the transportation sector, which could add to the glut of oil and hence to the downwards pressure on prices.

Nonetheless, looking out to beyond the next couple of months, they said: "U.S. supply might well decline faster than it otherwise would have, resulting in a strong price recovery in late 2020 and early 2021, once the worst of the Covid-19 crisis is behind us."

On home shores, consumer price data for March are only expected to reveal a slight slowing in inflation.

The year-on-year rate of increase in both headline and core CPI are seen slowing from a 1.7% in February to 1.5% for March.

However, economists are unanimous that the impact of the lockdown measures which began during the previous month would not start coming through in the data until April.

Across the Channel meanwhile, a survey of French business confidence in April is due out.

Further afield, rate-setters in Turkey are set to meet to decide on policy.

On the corporate front meanwhile, carbonated mix maker Fevertree is scheduled to publish its latest full-year numbers.

According to Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, investors will be trying to better gauge the outlook for the firm's margins.

"In some respect it has become a victim of its own success, being the leader in most of its market's investors are looking at what comes next," Hewson said.

"Recent events in the global economy haven't helped either and while the tonics market remains a resilient one it remains to be seen as to whether the types of margins that the company was able to achieve a year ago can be sustained in the face of an upcoming global recession."

Wednesday 22 April

FINALS

Boohoo Group, JTC, FEVERTREE DRINKS, XLMedia, RTW Venture Fund Limited NPV

INTERIMS

AB Dynamics, WH Smith

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

CRH

AGMs

EP Global Opportunities Trust, Premier Global Infrastructure Trust, Glanbia, Drax Group

EGMs

Arkle Resources

ANNUAL REPORT

RTW Venture Fund Limited NPV

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Consumer Price Index (07:00)

Retail Price Index (07:00)

Producer Price Index (07:00)

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)

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