Alibaba's chairman Joseph Tsai confirmed reports on Thursday that the company was partnering with Apple (AAPL) to bring AI to iPhones in China.
"Apple has been very selective. They talked to a number of companies in China, and in the end they choose to do business with us," Tsai reportedly said in an an interview at the World Government Summit in Dubai. "They want to use our AI to power their phones."
Derren Nathan, head of equity analysis at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "The cloud business hasn’t quite reached the heights of its American peers but saw strong profit growth last quarter."
"AI is a key driver of cloud consumption and the emergence of Chinese wannabe, DeepSeek, has caused quite a stir," he said. "The company’s denied its intention to take a stake in the start-up but has also released its own updated AI-engine alongside some punchy performance claims. Against this backdrop, investor sentiment has strengthened materially, so there is some pressure to deliver."
Nathan said that Alibaba (9988.HK, BABA) is expected to report revenue growth of 9% in the cloud business for the third quarter.
Alibaba's total revenue in the second quarter rose 5% year-on-year to 236.5 billion Chinese yuan (£25.8bn) and Nathan said this figure is expected to have grown by 7% to 280 billion Chinese yuan in the third quarter.
"Markets find out next week how the eCommerce giant’s core business has performed against a background of strengthening Chinese retail sales," he said.
As one of the world's largest retailers by sales, Walmart's (WMT) results are closely watched on Wall Street, particularly as inflationary pressures persist.
Data released on Wednesday showed that US inflation grew by more than expected in January, with the consumer price index (CPI) rising 3% year-on-year compared to economist estimates of 2.9%.
Investors will, therefore, be looking to Walmart's results to get an idea of consumer health in the US.
Shares closed Thursday's session at a fresh all-time high of $105.05 (£83.25) per share, with the stock up 86% over the past year.
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In the third quarter, Walmart posted sales of $169.59bn, besting estimates of $167.5bn. Adjusted earnings per share of $0.58 also beat expectations of $0.53.
Foot traffic grew by 3.1% in the third quarter, compared to estimates of 2.82% and e-commerce sales were up 22%, which was much higher than expectations of 2.22%.
On the back of these strong results, Walmart raised its guidance for the full-year, saying it now expected net sales to grow by between 4.8% and 5.1%.
The retailer guided to adjusted earnings per share of between $2.42 and $2.47, which was up from previous estimates in the range of $2.35 and $2.43.
NYSE - Delayed Quote • USD At close: February 18 at 4:00:02 PM EST
Georges Elhedery unveiled an overhaul of HSBC's (HSBA.L) structure in October, shortly after taking over as the bank's CEO.
The restructure divided the bank into four businesses as of the start of the year: Hong Kong, UK, corporate and institutional banking, as well as international wealth and premier banking.
HSBC (HSBA.L) said this was aimed at reducing the "duplication of processes and decision making" in the business.
Investors will be looking for more details on the changes when the bank releases its full-year results on Wednesday.
The Financial Times reported on Friday that the bank was preparing to unveil $1.5bn of annual cost savings from the restructuring in this week's results.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that HSBC (HSBA.L) was planning to start a new round of job cuts at its investment bank this week.
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A spokesperson for HSBC (HSBA.L) had not responded to Yahoo Finance UK's request for comment at the time of writing.
In the third quarter, HSBC posted a 10% jump in quarterly pre-tax profits to $8.5bn and announced an additional $3bn share buyback plan.
However, the bank's net interest income (NII) — the gap between what it pays out to savers and borrowers in interest — fell 17% compared to the same quarter last year and its net interest margin declined by 1.46%.
Looking to the upcoming results, Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.L), said: "Deposit trends are worth keeping in mind, savers have been easing off their transition to longer term accounts, but HSBC is more sensitive to migration than its peers.
"Loan defaults will also be a hot topic with HSBC seeing its market leading credit quality slip a little of late."
"To the 2024 numbers, $65.2bn in net operating income is expected to generate around $31.7bn of profit before tax," he added.
NYSE - Delayed Quote • USD At close: February 18 at 4:01:34 PM EST
Rio Tinto (RIO.L) is one of three major FTSE-listing (^FTSE) mining companies reporting this week, along with Antofagasta (ANTO.L) and Glencore (GLEN.L).
AJ Bell's investment experts Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that concerns around China's economy and its demand for raw materials, as well as cost price inflation and mixed commodity prices have weighed on the mining sector over the past year.
"Rio Tinto’s biggest earner is iron ore where the price is down by nearly a fifth in the past 12 months, a trend that swamps gains in its other key metals of aluminium and copper," they said.
One story that has been in focus for investors recently has been reports that Rio Tinto and Glencore had held talks about a potential merger, though it was said discussions did not progress.
AJ Bell's Mould, Hewson and Coatsworth said: "Rio Tinto’s management will doubtless be keen to keep any such advances at more than an arm’s length ... and shareholders seem happier for miners to keep a tight rein on spending and mergers and acquisitions, even after the substantial reductions in debt and improvements in balance sheets of the past decade or so."
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That said, investors will be looking for an update on how Rio Tinto's $6.7bn acquisition of Arcadium Lithium is progressing.
As for company performance, AJ Bell's investment experts said that Rio Tinto's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) in 2024 and 2025 is expected to come in broadly flat at $23bn to $24bn. Meanwhile, the miner's full-year dividend for last year is expected to fall to $3.86, which would be its lowest level since 2018.
"No increase is expected in 2025 either, as Rio digests Arcadium and works on several major projects, including Pilbara, the Oyu Tolgoi copper mine in Mongolia, the Simandou iron ore venture in Guinea and expansion at the Argentinian Rincon lithium mine, where first production began last November and Rio’s board has approved a $2.5bn budget to ramp up production to 60,000 tonnes of battery-grade lithium carbonate a year," they said.
"As a final point, Palliser Capital has been agitating for Rio Tinto to shift its primary stock market listing to New York, they added. "Little has come of this campaign, but it will be interesting to see if [CEO Jakob] Stausholm acknowledges it in his commentary."
Barclays (BARC.L) and NatWest (NWG.L) both beat expectations with their results this week, though share price falls following their releases suggest this wasn't enough to impress investors.
Investor attention now turning to Lloyds, which is expected to report a fall in pre-tax income for the year to £6.4bn ($8.07bn), down from £7.5bn in 2023, with a further drop to £5.5bn forecast for 2025.
AJ Bell's Mould, Hewson and Coatsworth said the expected fall is "thanks in part to a decline in net interest margins (as the Bank of England slowly cuts headline rates) and provisions relating to the Financial Conduct Authority’s investigation into the car financing market."
They said that analysts believe NII for the year will come in at £12.8bn, which would be down from £13.8bn in 2023 and expect Lloyds to report a figure of £13.4bn for 2025.
Read more: NatWest increases profits and dividends as Treasury cuts stake
"Litigation and conduct costs have also been minimal in 2024, but analysts and investors will be on the look-out here for any comments on the car financing market, where Lloyds took a £450m provision in the final period of 2023," they said. "The government has sought to intervene to cap any fine, but the Supreme Court will sit in judgement here in early April."
"Analysts expect another hit in 2025, when conduct costs are seen rising to £1.5bn from £440m in 2024 and £675m in 2023," they added.
As for cash returns, analysts are expecting Lloyds to declare a total dividend of 3.09p for 2024, which would be up from 2.65p in 2023, as well as a £2bn buyback.
"Such bumper cash returns, with the prospect of more to come in 2025, may be the biggest reason of all behind the storming share price performance across all of the FTSE 100’s (^FTSE) Big Five banks, although it will be interesting to see if the torrent of buybacks abates now the shares are no longer as cheap as they were," they said.
Monday 17 February
Wilmington (WIL.L)
BHP (BHP.L)
Transocean (RIG)
Anglo American Platinum (AGPPF)
Tuesday 18 February
Glencore (GLEN.L)
InterContinental Hotels (IHG.L)
Springfield Properties (SPR.L)
Baidu (9888.HK)
Capgemini cap.pa (CAP.PA)
Kerry Group (KRZ.IR)
Medtronic (MDT)
Cadence Design (CDNS)
Occidental Petroleum (OXY)
Toll Brothers (TOL)
Wednesday 19 February
BAE Systems (BA.L)
Philips (PHIA.AS)
Tenaris (TEN.MI)
Hochtief (HOT.DE)
Carrefour (CA.PA)
Analog Devices (ADI)
Carvana (CVNA)
CF Industries (CF)
AngloGold Ashanti (AU)
Alamos Gold (AGI)
Bausch & Lomb (BLCO)
Thursday 20 February
Centrica (CNA.L)
Mondi (MNDI.L)
Indivior (INDV.L)
Safestore (SAFE.L)
Lenovo (0992.HK)
Singapore Airlines (SIA1.SG)
Telstra (TLS.AX)
Schneider (SU.PA)
Airbus (AIR.PA)
Zurich (ZURN.SW)
Mercedes Benz (MBG.DE)
Renault (RNO.PA)
Repsol (REP.MC)
Accor (AC.PA)
Aegon (AGN.AS)
BE Semiconductor (BESI.AS)
Krones (KRN.DE)
Mercado Libre (MELI)
Nu (NU)
Newmont (NEM)
Cameco (CCJ)
Rivian (RIVN)
Baxter (BAX)
Life Nation (LYV)
Birkenstock (BIRK)
Dropbox (DBX)
Hasbro (HAS)
Shake Shack (SHAK)
Friday 21 February
Standard Chartered (STAN.L)
Air Liquide (AI.PA)
EDF (EDF)
Sika (SKFOF)
Kingspan (KGSPF)
Constellation Energy (CEG)
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