Whitbread PLC, J Sainsbury PLC and JD Sports PLC on London’s business

The travel sector has been blown around like a feather in the wind in the past couple of years, which has provided some shorter-term investors with some sport and long-term followers no little angst.   

Whitbread PLC (LSE:WTB), owner of the Premier Inn hotel chain, will be releasing a trading update on what looks a busy Wednesday in the City diary.

Unlike some of its sector peers and smaller rivals, the FTSE 100 group is well placed for the coming financial year, with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic set to be over by then, according to analysts at broker Peel Hunt.

With Downing Street apparently resisting calls to impose of further pandemic safety measures/restrictions, and with the Omicron variant of coronavirus seems to be working its way through the population very quickly, analysts said this bodes well for Whitbread.

Reiterating a ‘buy’ rating for the shares, they believe the recovery will “quickly re-establish itself” from early in the group’s new financial year, which starts in March.

With a share price that has lagged peers since last summer, Whitbread is expected to either catch up, or attract a bidder for the value of what is a largely freehold-backed business.

No mystery for Vistry

After some initial pandemic wobbles, housebuilders have been on a more confident upward path during the past year and a half, with Vistry Group PLC (LSE:VTY), the company formerly known as Bovis, the first of the sector’s larger operators to provide a trading statement in the new year,

This should reveal business as usual, having said in November that it was “firmly on track” to deliver full year underlying pre-tax profit of £345mln.

For that target to remain intact, according to Sophie Lund-Yates, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, it will partly depend on the cost inflation environment, where rising costs have been affecting the whole industry.

“We believe Vistry will have this under control, as it’s able to offset the costs thanks to higher house prices,” she added.

It’s worth noting in passing that the Halifax House Price Index for December indicated the average UK house price had reached a new high.

“That’s good news in the short term but we’ll be keeping an eye on the outlook statement. Rising prices plus increasing interest rates could take some of the heat out the housing market. This isn’t exactly a crisis in the making at this point, but we wonder if management expects demand to temper over the medium term,” Lund-Yates said.

Saino more?

The retail sector will also start to make its presence felt in numbers from Wednesday, with post-Christmas statements expected from a couple of blue chips, including J Sainsburys PLC.

The first trading updates from the retail sector are likely to confirm a pretty miserable festive season on the high street, said analysts at AJ Bell.

But…