5 stocks to watch in early 2026

As a new year gets underway, companies are gearing up to publish Christmas trading updates and financial results for 2025. These reports are treasure troves of information - and can prompt big share price movements.

We’ve picked five companies that could make the headlines in January and February. They tap into some of the year’s biggest themes and shine a light on key opportunities and challenges facing investors in 2026.

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BP

Full-year results: Tuesday 10 February

Oil and gas companies have been attracting more attention than usual following the capture and arrest of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. This is because Venezuela is home to some of the world’s largest oil reserves. Analysts think that America’s intervention could boost oil exports from the country, which has caused shares in some energy giants to rise.

Others are sceptical, however. ‘Oil companies are likely to be cautious about deploying capital until there is greater regulatory and contractual certainty,’ analysts at Morningstar concluded, adding that Venezuela's oil industry is in ‘disarray and disrepair’.

BP already has a lot on its plate. In February last year, it announced a ‘fundamental reset’ of its strategy. This involved pivoting back to oil and gas after a period of heavy investment in green energy. Then, in December, came the abrupt resignation of chief executive Murray Auchincloss. He will be replaced by Meg O’Neill in April. O’Neill will make history as the first woman to lead an oil major.

BP will publish its full-year results on 10 February, a few days after rival Shell. Recent results have been strong: it has beaten expectations in the past two quarters. Upcoming figures should tell us more about how cost-cutting is progressing, how cash generation is holding up, and what the outlook is like for production.

A lot of change is taking place within the company. Ultimately, however, the fortune of energy giants is closely linked to commodity prices. These didn’t work in BP’s favour last year: the oil price fell by nearly a fifth in 2025 due to concerns about oversupply ⁵.

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Unilever

Full-year results: Thursday 12 February

Consumer staples giant Unilever has had a busy 12 months. A new chief executive took the reins in March, and it spun off its huge ice cream business in December. The likes of Cornetto and Ben & Jerry’s are now part of the Magnum Ice Cream Company - a standalone group listed in Amsterdam, London and the US.

Unilever will publish its full-year results on 12 February. It is expected to report underling sales growth of between 3% and 5%, despite ‘subdued market conditions’¹. Its profit margin is also set to widen.

Analysts are hopeful that things will improve further in 2026 under new chief executive Fernando Fernandez. Following the ice cream spin-off, Unilever’s labyrinthine business model is now considerably simpler. It also retains a huge presence in emerging markets - over half of sales are made there. As such, it should benefit from long-term trends such as population growth and rising incomes.

Some investors are concerned about competition, however, and h¬igh marketing costs - it is expensive to keep enticing new customers. Foreign exchange risk also looms large. In the third quarter of 2025, adverse currency changes reduced Unilever's total turnover by over 6%².

There is also a question mark over ‘quality’ stocks more generally. Unilever is a staple in quality-focused funds such as Fundsmith Equity and Finsbury Growth and Income Trust. In recent years, however, this style of investing has struggled. Instead, explosive technology stocks like Nvidia have hogged the limelight.

• Read: Is now the time to consider quality stocks?

As investors diversify away from the US and Big Tech, however, and focus shifts back onto active stock picking, some argue that quality stocks are due a comeback. Unilever will certainly be hoping so.

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Novo Nordisk

Full-year results: Wednesday 4 February

Weight-loss drugs are the talk of the town. Wegovy and Mounjaro - or GLP-1s, to give them their technical name - are now offered by the NHS, and millions of others are buying them privately. Unfortunately, for some investors the weight loss has hit their wallets too.

Wegovy-maker Novo Nordisk had a punishing 2025. Profit downgrades came thick and fast, with the latest arriving in November. Sales are now expected to grow 8-11% in 2025 (management was predicting growth of 13-21% in May), while operating profit is expected to rise by 4-7% (compared with earlier forecasts of 16-24%)³.

Novo Nordisk has been losing market share to its US rival Eli Lilly, and pricing pressure is growing more intense. Late last year, it also reported disappointing results from a trial looking at the impact of semaglutide (the active ingredient in Wegovy) on Alzheimer’s disease⁴.

There could be more twists in the story, however. Novo Nordisk has just won approval for a new weight-loss pill, to sit alongside its injectable product. Analysts at Kepler Cheuvreux describe this as a ‘key and underestimated growth driver for 2026’. It has also reported promising weight-loss benefits in a diabetes trial involving a drug called amycretin.

Important information - investors should note that the views expressed may no longer be current and may have already been acted upon. This information is not a personal recommendation for any particular investment. Reference to specific securities should not be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell these securities and is included for the purposes of illustration only. When you are thinking about investing in shares, it’s generally a good idea to consider holding them alongside other investments in a diversified portfolio of assets. Overseas investments will be affected by movements in currency exchange rates. If you are unsure about the suitability of an investment you should speak to one of Fidelity’s advisers or an authorised financial adviser of your choice.