Companies reporting next week

TRADING updates from a clutch of top flight companies will be accompanied by full and half year figures from smaller players on the London market next week,

Positive trading statements from rival banks have increased the pressure on Lloyds TSB and HBOS ahead of their updates on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Lloyds is currently in the midst of a restructuring drive and has already guided the market against expecting any profit increases this year. Indications about the direction of the full-year dividend would also please investors.

Halifax-to-Bank of Scotland group HBOS should provide a more bullish statement on Tuesday as the bank is certain to have benefited from the strength of the housing and mortgage markets. Credit quality may be a niggling concern for analysts, but rivals have so far offered comfort on this front.

Analysts say cruise ship operator Carnival is likely to turn in a 3.9% fall in pre-tax profits to £818m when it reports full-year results on Thursday.

Broker Gerrard said the group's operating performance has improved each quarter in the first nine months of the year as booking demand has recovered from the period of the Iraq war and the outbreak of the Sars virus.

If bookings improve further on last year, oil prices do not rise too much from present levels and the dollar remains stable, Carnival should be able to record earnings growth well into double digits, Gerrard said.

Housebuilder Persimmon should be upbeat about the outlook for 2004 on Tuesday as volume expansion is expected to compensate for lower prices.

As for current trading, the York-based company should tell investors in an update that sales reservations and visitor numbers continue to be healthy and that it is confident of hitting full-year targets.

The London market has seen demand soften most but Persimmon will again highlight its small exposure to the region. The group continues to benefit from good cost control and higher selling prices, particularly in the North and Midlands.

West Midlands brick and paving manufacturer Baggeridge Brick is expected to turn in a solid performance when it reports full-year results on Wednesday.

Analysts are looking for the group, based in Dudley, to post a 75% increase in pre-tax profits to £5.6m, with earnings per share of 9.3p.

Broker Arbuthnot Securities said the FTSE Fledgling company has had a good year, with supply and demand in the brick market more balanced than last year.

The buoyant housing market has also boosted the firm, particularly in its home market in the Midlands, and the group's cost base has stabilised, the broker said.

Carpet retailer Carpetright is unlikely to disappoint investors when it posts interim results on Tuesday, broker KBC Peel Hunt said.

The Essex-based group is forecast to turn in a 20% rise in pre-tax profits to £64m and a 13% rise in the dividend per share to about 41.5p.

Although rising interest rates and possibly taxes are expected to slow retail sales growth and the carpet market has declined, Carpetright is positioned to benefit from its strength relative to larger, but weakening, rivals, KBC said.

Door-to-door catalogue sales business Kleeneze is expected to report flat profits before goodwill and exceptional items of £2.6m when it reports interim results on Wednesday.

That figure, however, is before losses that the Swindon-based firm - which sells mops, dusters and other household items through its core Kleeneze UK arm - is expected to incur on the sale of its display marketing business DMG, broker Hoare Govett said.

Kleeneze, which also has owns Farepak, which provides Christmas hampers, gifts and shopping vouchers on a monthly instalment basis through catalogues, said in July that growth in turnover at Kleeneze UK since the year-end had been encouraging, especially against the background of the weak economic environment.