The UK autumn budget will be in the spotlight in the coming week, along with earnings releases from a number major global companies.

Markets are bracing for billions in tax hikes when chancellor Rachel Reeves delivers her autumn budget on Wednesday, as she seeks to repair the country’s public finances.

In terms of earnings, Chinese tech giant Alibaba (9988.HK, BABA) is due to report, with investors eyeing the company’s level of AI spending and the returns it is generating from these investments.

Meanwhile, in the US tech sector, Dell (DELL) is to release third-quarter earnings, though the company offered a mixed outlook for Q3 in its previous set of results.

In Europe, Rémy Cointreau (RCO.PA) is slated to report, with recent sales figures having already given investors a taste of what to expect from the French spirit maker’s half-year results.

On the London market, investors will be keeping an eye on EasyJet’s (EZJ.L) results, after the airline flagged its annual profit would be impacted by higher fuel costs and a strike by French air traffic control in the summer.

Here’s more detail on what to look out for:

A later-than-usual autumn budget has seen speculation run wild over what the UK chancellor could announce to help rebuild the government’s fiscal headroom, which has been eroded by higher borrowing costs, spending and weak economic growth.

The latest UK government borrowing figures, released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday, highlighted the scale of the fiscal challenge facing Reeves. While borrowing fell to £17.4bn ($22.8bn) in October, which was £1.8bn less than in the same month last year, this figure was still higher than consensus expectations of £15.1bn and the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) forecast of £14.4bn.

Reeves laid the ground for potential tax rises in a speech delivered at Downing Street in early November, as she said that since last year’s autumn budget, the “world has thrown even more challenges our way” and that “each of us must do our bit” for the future of the country.

In the run up to the budget, speculation has ramped up about which areas Reeves could target in her budget to help raise funds to shore up the UK’s public finances.

Read more: UK announces billions more investment in AI ahead of budget

One rumour was that the chancellor was looking at increase income tax rates, but it was then reported that Reeves had dropped this plan. The decision reportedly came after she received better-than-expected economic forecasts from the OBR, with the UK’s fiscal hole now anticipated to be closer to £20bn, down from a previous estimation of £30bn.

Instead, it has been reported that Reeves could be looking at freezing income tax thresholds for another two years.

Craig Rickman, personal finance editor at Interactive Investor, said that “if Reeves extends the deep freeze on income tax and NI thresholds beyond the current 2028 schedule, our HMRC bills will creep up regardless.”

“Prolonging fiscal drag, as its known, by a further two years could pocket the Treasury £16bn as more people trip into higher tax brackets as their incomes rise,” he said.

Another change rumoured to have been considered by the Treasury is putting a £2,000 annual limit on the amount workers can contribute to their pension without paying national insurance, under “salary sacrifice” schemes.

“This could hurt both workers and businesses who use salary sacrifice on pension contributions to trim NI bills,” said Rickman.

Changes to property taxes, such as stamp duty and council tax, are also rumoured to be on the table.

“Talk of cuts to the annual cash ISA limit have also occupied the headlines, as part of the government’s broad push to entice savers into the stock market to improve their returns and boost economic growth,” said Rickman. “But the idea has faced fierce opposition, notably from building societies.”

Despite a strong third-quarter earnings beat by Nvidia’s (NVDA), shares in the chipmaker fell on the back of its results, signalling continued investor jitters about an “AI bubble” in markets.

Concerns about lofty valuations of US Big Tech stocks as firms continue to plough money into AI, has prompted greater scrutiny over companies’ level of spending on the technology and the return they are generating from these investments.

Earlier this year, Chinese tech giant Alibaba announced that it planned to invest at least $53bn in AI and cloud infrastructure over the next three years.

In the company first quarter results, released in August, Alibaba CEO Eddie Wu said that its “strategic focus on consumption and AI+cloud delivered strong growth”.

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Derren Nathan, head of equity research at Hargreaves Lansdown, said that Alibaba approaches its second-quarter earnings with “impressive momentum” in its cloud intelligence unit, with this division seeing 26% revenue growth in Q1 helped by triple-digit gains in AI-related revenues.

“The critical question is whether these emerging segments can compensate for ongoing pressure in its core Chinese ecommerce business,” he said.

Overall revenue for the first quarter came in at RMB247.7 billion (£26.7bn), which was up 2% year-on-year.

“Revenue is expected to rise only 3% this quarter, with heavy spending on AI infrastructure poised to squeeze profits further,” said Nathan. “That’s also driven free cash flow into negative territory, and with over $53bn committed to the build out over the next three years it may stay that way for some time.”

Alibaba’s Hong Kong-listed shares jumped following the release of its results, with the stock up 78% year-to-date.

Shares in Dell fell following the release of its second-quarter results in August, after guidance failed to fully match up to expectations.

Dell, which makes personal computers, as well as IT infrastructure products such as servers, said it expected third quarter revenue to be between $26.5bn (£20.3bn) and $27.5bn. This was ahead of analysts’ average estimate of $26.05bn, according to LSEG-compiled data reported by Reuters.

However, the company’s forecast of adjusted earnings per share for the quarter of $2.45 at the midpoint, was below expectations of $2.55, as per Reuters report.

The negative market reaction to the Dell’s results came despite the company raising its full-year guidance, saying it expected revenue to be between $105bn and $109bn, versus a previous forecast of $101bn and $105bn.

Dell also lifted its full-year earnings forecast to a midpoint of $9.55 per share, up from previous guidance of $9.40.

The company reported record revenue of $29.8bn in the second quarter, topping estimates of $29.17bn. Adjusted earnings of $2.32 per share also beat expectations of $2.30.

Ahead of Dell’s latest earnings, Morgan Stanley (MS) analysts downgraded their rating on Dell to “underweight”, slashing their price target on the stock to $110 from $144. Analysts said that they believed rising memory costs could squeeze hardware margins next year, making Dell one of the companies most exposed.

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In an update released at the end of October, Rémy Cointreau reported that sales in the first half of its fiscal year had fallen 4.2% on an organic basis to €489.6m (£431.1m).

While the French spirits company reported sales growth in the Americas, it posted a decline in the Asia-Pacific region, which it said reflected “tougher market conditions in China, unfavourable calendar effects linked to the Mid-Autumn festival occurring three weeks later this year and lingering disruptions in travel retail.

The company also reported a fall in sales in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) regions, which it said were impacted mainly by “fierce promotional pressures and overall sluggish consumption”.

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Rémy Cointreau said that the “deterioration of market conditions in China”, as well as a weaker-than-expected rebound in sales in the US had prompted it to lower its guidance for the year.

The company said it now expected to organic sales growth to range between “stable” and low single-digits, versus a previous forecast of mid-single-digit growth.

In addition, Rémy Cointreau anticipated an organic decline in its current operating profit of between low double digits and mid-teens.

It also warned of adverse currency effects of between €50m and €60m (£44m and £53m) on sales, as well as a hit of €25m to €30m on current operating profit.

The company’s half-year results, due out on Wednesday, should offer more details on its performance so far this year.

Choppiness in the company’s shares throughout the year, have left the stock nearly 27% in the red year-to-date.

Despite reporting a strong third quarter, EasyJet shares fell following the release of the results in July, as the airline warned that full-year profits would be impacted by higher fuel costs and the scale of industrial action by French air traffic control.

The company reported revenue of £2.92bn in the third quarter, which was nearly 11% higher than the same period last year. Group profit before tax jumped £50m to £286m for the period.

AJ Bell’s investment experts Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that for the year analysts are looking for a headline pre-tax profit figure of £650m and £740m for the coming year.

Read more: UK government borrows more than expected in pre-budget blow for Reeves

“Any comments on forward bookings will help to shape forecasts for the first quarter, and indeed the whole, of the new financial year,” they said. “At this stage, a year ago, the first quarter was 80% sold and the second 26%.”

They also suggested that investors should watch out for new aircraft delivery schedules, with easyJet having been due to take delivery of nine new aircraft in the year to September 2025 to take its base fleet to 356 aircraft.

“For all of the ambitious fleet growth plans, EasyJet has a clear policy of returning one-fifth of after-tax earnings to shareholders as dividends,” they said.

As a result, they said that analysts are looking for a dividend of 13.3p a share, up from 12.1p for fiscal 2024.

Monday 24 November

Naspers (NPN.JO)

Prosus (PRX.AS)

Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD.TO)

Agilent (A)

Zoom Communications (ZM)

Tuesday 25 November

Kingfisher (KGF.L)

Compass (CPG.L)

Marston’s (MARS.L)

Renew Holdings (RNWH.L)

Cranswick (CWK.L)

Molten Ventures (GROW.L)

GB Group (GBG.L)

Brickability (BRCK.L)

Intertek (ITRK.L)

Beazley (BEZ.L)

Analog Devices (ADI)

Autodesk (ADSK)

HP (HP)

Netapp (NTAP)

DollarTree (DLTR)

Best Buy (BBY)

Dick’s Sporting Goods (DKS)

Urban Outfitters (URBN)

Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF)

Kohl’s (KSS)

Wednesday 26 November

Auction Technology Group (ATG.L)

Johnson Matthey (JMAT.L)

Pets At Home (PETS.L)

Helical (HLCL.L)

Hill & Smith (HILS.L)

Trigano (TRI.PA)

Thursday 27 November

Pennon (PNN.L)

Halfords (HFD.L)

James Latham (LTHM.L)

Safestore (SAFE.L)

Friday 28 November

Frontline (FRO)

You can read Yahoo Finance’s full calendar here.

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