LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - All eyes at the end of the week will be on a key speech set to be delivered US Federal Reserve chairman, Jerome Powell, at 1500 BST.
Traders will be carefully listening to his speech at the Jackson Hole central banking symposium, entitled \'Challenges for Monetary Policy\', hoping for any hints or signals that an interest rate cut is indeed in the offing for when policymakers next meet on 17-18 September.

Quite important as well will be any remarks that other top Fed officials might make, especially those sitting on the Federal Open Market Committee, the Fed\'s rate-setting body.

When the FOMC cut rates by 25 basis points at the 30-31 July FOMC, Powell described the move as a mid-course adjustment.

But markets were expecting somewhat more.

According to the CME\'s Fed Watch tool, Fed funds futures were fully pricing-in at least three 25bp cuts by April 2020.

Computacenter is expected to deliver a slightly better outcome for the latest six-month stretch than one year ago and to stick to guidance for a significant on its bottom-line for the full-year.

The IT infrastructure and services provider had pre-announced a first half profit before tax \"marginally ahead of\" last year\'s take and a full-year outcome \"materially ahead of current market expectations\".

That latter forecast was on the back of the heavy provisions taken by the firm on its outsourcing contracts - mainly in Germany - which it now felt comfortable would reduce significantly in the backhalf of 2019 versus the year ago pace, analysts at UBS pointed out.

Friday August 23

INTERIMS

Ashmore Global Opportunities Limited GBP , Computacenter, Glenveagh Properties, Henry Boot

INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Independent Inv Trust, M & G Credit Income Investment Trust

QUARTERLY PAYMENT DATE

APQ Global Limited, Primary Health Properties, SME Credit Realisation Fund Limited NPV, Tufton Oceanic Assets Limited NPV

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

New Homes Sales (US) (15:00)

Q2

Afarak Group (DI)

AGMS

Ashmore Global Opportunities Limited GBP , Mortice Ltd. (DI), Naspers Ltd. ADR

UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS

BBA Mortgage Lending Figures (09:30)

CBI Distributive Trades Surveys (11:00)

FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE

Bloomsbury Publishing, GB Group, Latham (James), Scapa Group, Triad Group

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