Wednesday preview: Man and Wetherspoon

LONDON (ShareCast) - Pubs group JD Wetherspoon gives an update on Wednesday for the second quarter of its financial year, which will cover the hyper-busy Christmas and New year trading period. Panmure Gordon notes the group will be running up against some tough comparative figures from a year ago, but still reckons the group will announce "solid" like-for-like sales growth of around 1% and an operating margin in the region of 9.3%. Hedge fund manager Man Group (LSE: EMG.L - news) will have been glad to have seen the back of 2011, a year in which its share price halved. Unfortunately, the company is still obliged to look back on 2011, starting with an update on Wednesday covering the final three months of the year. RBC (MCX: RBCI.ME - news) reckons Man (Other OTC: MAGOF.PK - news) will have seen an eye-watering $2.3bn outflow of funds in the final quarter of 2011. Switching to the economy, UK unemployment data is out. The consensus expectation is that the International Labour Organisation (ILO) unemployment rate for November (Stuttgart: A0Z24E - news) will have stabilised at 8.3%, while December's claimant count unemployment is tipped to rise by 7,100. Barclays Capital said it expects earnings growth for December to be unchanged from November. INTERIM DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Home Retail Group (EUREX: HOMF.EX - news) , Hyder Consulting (LSE: HYC.L - news) , National Grid (LSE: NG.L - news) INTERIM EX-DIVIDEND DATE ACM Shipping Group, Ashtead Group (LSE: AHT.L - news) , Consort Medical (Other OTC: CSRMF.PK - news) , Games Workshop Group, QinetiQ Group (Other OTC: QNTQF.PK - news) QUARTERLY EX-DIVIDEND DATE Caterpillar Inc (NYSE: CAT - news) . INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Capacity Utilisation (US) (16:15) Crude Oil Inventories (US) (15:30) Industrial Production (US) (16:15) MBA Mortgage Applications (US) (12:00) Producer Price Index (US) (13:30) IMSS Carphone Warehouse Group, Diploma (LSE: DPLM.L - news) , Findel (LSE: FDL.L - news) AGMS Character Group, Diploma, Enegi Oil (Berlin: 4LK.BE - news) , Lowland Investment Co, Majedie Investments, Tracsis (Berlin: 4T2.BE - news) TRADING ANNOUNCEMENTS Hochschild Mining (Berlin: H3M.BE - news) , JD Wetherspoon, Man Group, Tullow Oil (Stuttgart: 591219 - news) UK ECONOMIC ANNOUNCEMENTS Claimant Count Rate (09:30) Unemployment Rate (09:30) FINAL DIVIDEND PAYMENT DATE Bellway (Berlin: 41B.BE - news) FINAL EX-DIVIDEND DATE Artemis VCT, Cardiff Property (LSE: CDFF.L - news) , CareTech Holding, Imperial Tobacco Group (Dusseldorf: 517719.DU - news) , Income & Growth VCT , RWS Holdings (Berlin: RWJ.BE - news) jh