Week Ahead: NAPS update | Tesco analysis | New tax year

Good morning and welcome to The Week Ahead – the first to kick off the brand new tax year. The heat of financial reporting season is well and truly over in the UK. But in the US (where companies report their numbers quarterly and tend to be able to get their figures in line far quicker than here in the UK), the first quarter corporate earnings season starts on Friday when results from three of the big banks are due. We’ll also see the latest inflation figures from the US on Wednesday, with investors, economists and consumers all watching to see whether the bump in inflation reported in the first couple of months of the year is becoming a trend. Friday’s data from the US showed continued resilience, sparking optimism for the corporate earnings season which promoted more than a 1% increase in both the Samp;P 500 and the Nasdaq 100. Back on domestic soil, it’s the first week of the new tax year, which means our national insurance contributions have all declined and the state pension is 8.5% higher. But don’t expect to feel much better off. Inflation in the UK is still proving hard to shift, while a freeze on tax…