Wednesday preview: William Hill, JD Wetherspoon, Unemployment

18th Jan 2011 16:23

Time spent down the bookies and the pub today could be passed off as company research as betting shop operator William Hill and pubs group JD Wetherspoon are set to issue trading statements tomorrow.Both may have cause to gripe about the weather in December, with William Hill counting the cost of lost sporting fixtures and JD Wetherspoon bemoaning the lack of passing trade.Peel Hunt thinks that if William Hill's retail business has suffered a winter chill, some of the slack might have been taken up by its online business. "Although William Hill management has made conflicting comments in the past on the impact of the weather on online, we believe that sustained poor weather does boost online revenues - this was certainly the experience of mobile gaming specialist Probability when it updated the market [last] week," the broker said.According to industry data, there were 56 race meetings abandoned out of 113 scheduled for December 2010 due to adverse weather conditions, against a comparative of 19 of 103 abandoned in December 2009, notes Panmure Gordon.It, too, is expecting the online business to compensate for loss of business in the shops from cancelled race meetings. JD Wetherspoon parted company back in October with its finance director and chief operating officer, suggesting that there may have been a disagreement over strategy, with the general view being that one faction wanted to restore margins while the other was in favour of keeping top line momentum.Wednesday's trading update will cover the group's second quarter, and Panmure Gordon thinks that like for like sales will be, at best, flat. "The group opened five new pubs (and closed two) during the first quarter, and the performance of recently opened pubs remains encouraging," the broker notes. UK unemployment data for December is due for release at 9:30am. The claimant count is expected to remain unchanged from November's level at about 1.46m, with the claimant count unemployment rate also tipped to remain unchanged, at 4.5%.The number of jobless as measured using the International Labour Organisation (ILO) methodology is forecast to have risen by 45,000 to 2.49m in the three months to end-October.The ILO unemployment rate is forecast to remain unchanged at 7.9%.INTERIMSEbiquityINTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEHome Retail Group, National GridINTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATEACM Shipping Group, Ashtead Group, Consort Medical, Jupiter Second Split Trust Geared Shares, Pennon GroupQUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATECity of London Inv Trust, Merchants TrustINTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSCurrent Account (EU) (09:00)Construction Output (EU) (10:00)Housing Starts (US) (13:30)Building Permits (US) (13:30)Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30)IMSSLand Securities GroupSPECIAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATELancashire HoldingsAGMSCharacter Group, F&C Capital & Income Inv Trust, GW Pharmaceuticals, Lowland Investment Co, Majedie Investments, Redefine InternationalTRADING ANNOUNCEMENTSASOS, JD Wetherspoon, William HillUK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTSClaimant Count Rate (09:30)Unemployment Rate (09:30)Average Weekly Earnings (09:30)FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATEDiplomaFINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATECardiff Property, Imperial Tobacco Group, RWS Holdings, Titon Holdings