Next week on the stock market

Alibaba’s third quarter revenue is forecast to have grown by 7% to 280bn Chinese Yuan. We’ll find out next week how the eCommerce giant’s core business has performed against a background of strengthening Chinese retail sales. 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. 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. Third quarter cloud growth is expected to be around 9% and investors will be hoping to have some hooks on which to pin a punchier outlook.

Lloyds reports fourth-quarter and full-year results next week. Consensus suggests a slowdown in performance from the previous quarter, with the net interest margin rising from 2.95% to 2.97%, but higher costs weighing on the profit line.

There will be a focus on provisions, with some analysts expecting Lloyds to set more money aside (£450mn already in the pot) in preparation for charges relating to the mis-selling of Motor Finance. Capital returns will also be watched, with Lloyds expected to announce a £1.7bn buyback and 2.03p dividend (no guarantees).

We will also be watching to see how much Lloyds sets aside for potential loan losses over the quarter, with a £280mn charge expected. Guidance for 2025 will perhaps be even more important, with consumer and business resilience in focus, as well as any commentary around how some of Lloyds’ other income plays are expected to evolve over the coming year.

HSBC comes into full-year results with a spring in its step as Georges Elhedery settles into the CEO seat, and we should get more detail next week around plans to simplify the structure. Cost savings will be a key focus with the streets whispering about a potential $3bn target. That may be optimistic, but any material savings would be good news for cost/income ratios, and we’d expect the focus to be on improving performance at the US and European businesses.

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.