LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - All eyes on Thursday would be on the US central bank as it announced its latest policy decision.
Consensus was for a 25 basis point interest rate hike with policymakers likely to continue to say that policy would remain tighter for longer and - perhaps - leaving the door to further increases if needed.

Ahead of that announcement, at 1315 BST consultancy ADP would release its estimate for private sector hiring in the US for April.

The data sometimes resulted in a certain amount of intra-day volatility.

They would be followed at 1500 BST by the results of the Institute for Supply Management's services sector Purchasing Managers' Index for the same month.

Lloyds Banking Group would be in the spotlight on the company side of things as the lender released its first quarter results.

The lender's last set of full-year numbers showed that it continued to be very profitable, said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK, but also that costs were on the rise.

At the time, Lloyds said it was expecting net annual interest margin to improve to above 3.05%, versus a prior estimate of 2.8% while operating costs were set to remain static.

Wednesday 03 May

INTERIMS

Smiths News , Ten Lifestyle Group

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

British American Tobacco, Marble Point Loan Financing Limited NPV

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)

ISM Prices Paid (US) (15:00)

ISM Services (US) (15:00)

MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00)

PMI Composite (US) (14:45)

PMI Services (US) (14:45)

Unemployment Rate (EU) (10:00)

FINALS

Ashtead Technology Holdings, Cambridge Cognition Holdings, Inspiration Healthcare Group , Light Science Technologies Holdings

AGMS

Apax Global Alpha Limited , Barclays, Elementis, Gran Tierra Energy Inc. (CDI), GSK, Logistics Development Group, Okyo Pharma Limited NPV, Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV, Pershing Square Holdings Ltd NPV (USD), Reach, Reckitt Benckiser Group, Standard Chartered, Unilever

TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS

Barratt Developments, Flutter Entertainment (CDI), OSB Group , TI Fluid Systems

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