The pace of earnings releases is continuing to wind down, but this gives investors more opportunity to focus on the key names that are still reporting in the coming week.
Investors will be looking to the latest results from Salesforce, which provides customer relationship management (CRM) software, to see how the company's big bet on AI is panning out.
Earnings from athleisure brand Lululemon are also on deck, with investors looking for more details on the new styles that the retailer is expected to launch in stores this coming year.
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Frasers Group, the UK-listed retail company founded by mogul Mike Ashley, has made headlines recently for its moves on brands to gain an even bigger slice of the industry. The attention this coming week will now turn to its half-year results.
Another name on the UK market that investors will be looking at this week is Berkeley, to see if its latest results show that the housebuilder is still on track to meet its earnings guidance.
Back in the US, footwear and apparel retailer Foot Locker is also slated to report, with investor hoping to see further progress in its growth plan.
Here's more on what to look out for.
When Salesforce revealed more details about its suite of autonomous AI agents ahead of its annual Dreamforce conference in September, the company said the Agentforce platform represented the "third wave of the AI revolution".
The Agentforce software will be firmly in focus in Salesforce's third quarter results, which are due out after the market close on Tuesday 3 December.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told reporters at the time that the deployment of digital agents marked the start of a hybrid future in which humans and AI agents work side by side.
“This is the biggest and most exciting piece of technology we have ever worked on,” he said.
Shares in the company had seen some choppiness earlier in the year, falling sharply after the release of its fiscal first quarter results in May.
However, Salesforce's second quarter figures lifted investor spirits, as it topped estimates on both top and bottom lines.
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Revenue came in at $9.3bn (£7.3bn) versus an expected $9.2bn, while adjusted earnings per share of $2.56 beat expectations of $2.35.
Salesforce guided to third quarter revenue of between $9.31bn and $9.36bn. The company also raised its full-year earnings guidance to a range of $10.03 to $10.11 per share, up from a previous forecast of $9.86 to $9.94 per share.
Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.L), said: "After a poor start to the year and a reset of expectations, Salesforce looks to be back on the right track. But it’s still a tough market to be a major software player, businesses are taking longer to commit to big deals and some are still kicking the can down the road altogether."
He said that investors would be watching closely for updates on how Salesforce's clients are using Agentforce.
"Going beyond chatbots, this platform allows companies to build autonomous agents that can both make decisions and take actions," said Britzman. "The real question is how useful they are in real life, and how long it’ll take Salesforce to monetise this new product – with answers hopefully forthcoming next week."
NYSE - Nasdaq Real Time Price • USD As of 10:51:37 AM EDT. Market Open.
Shares in athleisure brand Lululemon sunk lower after the release of its second quarter results in August, with the stock down nearly 38% year-to-date.
While revenue grew by 7% year-on-year to $2.37bn in the second quarter, this was just shy of the expected $3.41bn.
Earnings per share of $3.15 topped estimates of $2.95 and were higher than the $2.68 reported last year.
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However, Lululemon slashed its full-year guidance, with the company expecting revenue of $10.38bn to $10.48bn, down from a previous forecast $10.7bn to $10.8bn.
Earnings guidance was also cut to a range of $13.95 to $14.15 per share, down from $14.27 to $14.47 per share.
One challenge that Lululemon faced in the second quarter was strong customer criticism of the fit of its "Breezethrough" leggings, which led the brand to pull the product from its stores in July.
In its post-earnings call in August, Lululemon CEO Calvin McDonald said the retailer was "fast-tracking" new styles to the market for 2025, according to a Reuters report.
For the third quarter, Lululemon said it expected net revenue to be in the range of $2.34bn to $2.365bn, while earnings per share were forecast to come in at between $2.68 to $2.73.
NasdaqGS - Nasdaq Real Time Price • USD As of 10:51:36 AM EDT. Market Open.
Ashley's Frasers Group has been embroiled in public row with fast-fashion retailer Boohoo Group (BOO.L) in recent weeks.
Last week, Frasers published an open letter to Boohoo shareholders entitled: "A simple choice: win with Mike Ashley or lose with Mahmud Kamani."
As it suggests, the letter called for Kamani to be removed as Boohoo's executive chairman and appoint Ashley as a director, along with restructuring expert Mike Lennon. That same morning, Boohoo announced it had appointed Tim Morris as the company's independent chair and instead, made Kamani executive vice-chair.
In October, Frasers called for Boohoo to appoint Ashley as CEO but this request was shunned by the fast-fashion retailer, who opted to appoint Dan Finley as boss instead.
Frasers, a major investor in Boohoo, has targeted the retailer following a run of weak performance. This has led Boohoo to launch a review into its business and seek refinancing.
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Aarin Chiekrie, equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said: "It’s an interesting dynamic, and one that will evolve over the coming weeks.
Last month, luxury handbag maker Mulberry (MUL.L) rejected a takeover bid of £111m ($141m) from Frasers Group, calling the offer "untenable".
Frasers, which owns Sports Direct and House of Fraser, is set to release its first-half results on Thursday 5 December.
Shares rose in July after Frasers released its full-year results, in which the company posted adjusted profit before tax of £544.8m, up 13% on the 2023 fiscal year.
For 2025, Frasers Group said it was expecting to increase adjusted profit before tax to a range of £575m to £625m.
"It will be interesting to see if this remains on track at the halfway mark," said Chiekrie.
"There should also be early insight into how trading’s fared in the run-up to the important Christmas period. Frasers, with its high brick-and-mortar exposure, relies heavily on shoppers heading to the high street, so it’s more vulnerable than most if there’s any pullback in footfall."
Shares in the retail group are down 19% year-to-date.
Shares in higher-end housebuilder Berkeley were trading near their highest point since 2020 in August but have since slumped and are now down 14% year-to-date.
Danni Hewson, head of financial analysis at AJ Bell (AJB.L), and Dan Coatsworth, investment analyst for the platform, shares had "sagged owing to concerns over whether interest rates will stay higher for longer because of inflation and ever-higher government debt."
Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey warned last week that the central would be forced to cut interest rates at a "gradual" pace as it evaluates the impact of policies changes for employers announced in the autumn budget.
Bailey told members of the Treasury select committee that there could be a variety of outcomes resulting from the announcement to raise employer national insurance contributions. This includes higher inflation if businesses raise prices.
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Higher interest rates mean higher mortgage costs, resulting in fewer people being able to afford to buy or move house, impacting the property market.
Nevertheless, Berkeley said in an update in September that trading had been stable for the four months of the year. The company said it remained on target to achieve its pre-tax earnings guidance for the year of £525m, 90% of which had already been secured through exchanged sales contracts.
Berkeley added that pre-tax profits for the year are expected to be weighted towards the first half and its operating margin would, therefore, be slightly ahead of its long-term range of 17.5% to 19.5% for this period.
As a benchmark for the first-half figures, Berkeley posted sales of £1.9bn in the same period last year, an operating margin of 19.5% and pre-tax profit of £298m.
Shares in Foot Locker have been volatile this year, with the stock down 19% year-to-date.
In the second quarter, the US retailer posted a net loss of $12m, worsening from the $5m loss it reported for the same period last year.
This equated to a loss of $0.13 per share, compared with a loss of $0.05 per share in the second quarter of 2023.
However, Foot Locker said it returned to top line growth in the second quarter with total sales up to nearly $19bn.
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Foot Locker also reaffirmed its outlook for the year, saying it expected sales to range from 1% to 1% higher of the previous year, and earnings per share to come in between $1.50 and $1.70.
Mary Dillon, president and CEO of Foot Locker, said the company's "Lace up" growth plan was working as demonstrated by "positive total and comparable sales growth as well as gross margin expansion in the second quarter".
"Through our Lace Up Plan, we are unlocking meaningful opportunities for our business as we are leveraging our strong brand partnerships, differentiating our in-store experiences through refreshes and new concept doors, and enhancing our customer connections via digital and loyalty," she said.
"We are also continuing to simplify our business to enable greater focus on our core banners and markets and have taken steps to further streamline our operations in Asia and Europe, while expanding our licensing partnerships."
In the second quarter, Foot Locker opened five new stores and closed 31 locations. This included closing its stores and ecommerce operations in South Korea, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden.
NYSE - Nasdaq Real Time Price • USD As of 10:51:37 AM EDT. Market Open.
Monday 2 December
Prosus (PRX.AS)
Naspers (NPN.JO)
ZScaler (ZS)
Tuesday 3 December
Victrex (VCT.L)
Greencore (GNC.L)
SSP Group (SSPG.L)
On The Beach (OTB.L)
Paragon Banking (PAG.L)
DiscoverIE (DSCV.L)
Marvell (MRVL)
Wednesday 4 December
Tritax Eurobox (EBOX.L)
Treatt (TET.L)
Hormel Foods (HRL)
Campbell’s Soup (CPB)
Dollar Tree (DLTR)
Chewy (CHWY)
Thursday 5 December
Future (FUTR.L)
DS Smith (SMDS.L)
Watches of Switzerland (WOSG.L)
SDI (SDI.L)
HP Enterprises (HPE)
Brown-Forman (BF-B)
Dollar General (DG)
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