Next week on the stock market

Persimmon’s faced its fair share of struggles over recent years. From their peak, both volumes and operating margins have fallen much harder than the broader sector. But early signs of promise are emerging in some forward-looking metrics. And while sales rates and price increases are modest, they’ve bucked the sector’s declining trend of late. Next week’s trading update will let us know whether that positive momentum’s continued into the new year.

Last we heard, build cost inflation was back on the rise, so we’re keen to get an update on where Persimmon sees this tracking over 2025. The group’s in-house materials business is a key differentiator and should offer some protection from this. The new government promised to ease planning consent, which would be favourable to Persimmon given its large land bank and low average selling prices. Any updated timelines on this front would be welcomed news.

Experian enters its third-quarter trading update on the back of a solid first half. Despite challenges such as weaker performance in Brazil, currency impacts, and slower growth in US Consumer Services due to tough comparisons, Experian delivered strong and dependable top-line growth alongside impressive margin expansion.

The US credit market remains central to Experian’s operations, so any updates on areas like US mortgages will be closely watched. While there had been hope for a rebound in mortgage activity as rates started to decline, the Trump election has introduced uncertainty with some of his inflationary policies potentially keeping rates higher and delaying any recovery.

The world’s leading semiconductor foundry expects to report revenue of around $26.5bn in next week’s fourth-quarter results. That’s a growth rate of around 35%, broadly in line with the trends seen in the previous quarter, which were driven by Artificial Intelligence and Smartphone demand.

The market’s attention will be firmly focussed on the outlook for 2025. Consensus forecasts are currently looking for robust but slightly slower growth of around 26%. Management thinks that AI demand is here to stay, and there are signs of a further pick-up in infrastructure spending plans in the data center space.

TSMC is investing heavily to keep up with demand. This year we’re likely to see an increased investment budget from the $30bn or so earmarked for 2024. We think this is the right approach and one that’s unlikely to cause any undue pressure on the company’s robust finances.