The Week Ahead (2 -6 March): Spring forward

Hello and welcome to this week’s edition of The Week Ahead!

No interest rate decisions: this is an “off” week in terms of Western central bank activity. The Federal Reserve, Bank of England and European Central Bank are all due to meet in mid-March, so we have several weeks of quiet before we have to think about interest rates again.

For now, the focus is on earnings, earnings, earnings. Next week will see another deluge of earnings announcements from UK companies.

There will be few US/international results to distract us, with most American companies having already published their numbers by this stage.

Instead, we’ll have a wide range of interesting domestic stocks to review.

Spring statement: There will be one important piece of economic news to digest: Rachel Reeves’ Spring economic statement, which is due on Tuesday and will be accompanied by various official economic estimates from the OBR.

After the dramatic Autumn statement, which saw OBR numbers released prior to the Chancellor’s speech, the Spring statement is expected to be a much quieter affair.

For one thing, the OBR is not going to be tasked with checking whether or not the government is on course to meet its fiscal rules....