5 stocks to watch in July

Newspaper journalists refer to the summer as ‘silly season’. Big stories tend to dry up, meaning pages are padded out with lighter reads. For investors, however, it is a busy period. Companies with financial years that run from January to December tend to report their interim results in late July, meaning there are lots of updates on the horizon.  

AstraZeneca, Shell, Rolls Royce and Lloyds Banking Group are all poised to report their half-year figures next month, while one of the FTSE 100’s newest members, Games Workshop, is due to post its full-year numbers.

The updates will be watched particularly closely given escalating tensions in the Middle East and the lingering threat of global trade wars. ‘Silly season’ in 2025 may prove serious after all.

This article is not a recommendation to buy or sell these investments; it is purely insight into some of the companies that announce results over the next month. 

Games Workshop

It seems unlikely that a company selling plastic elves, orks and lizardmen could climb to the upper echelons of the London stock market. And yet, that’s exactly what Games Workshop has done. The maker of the tabletop fantasy game Warhammer entered the FTSE 100 in December, and shares have continued to rise since then.

Games Workshop’s annual results for the year to June 2025 are set to be very strong. The company expects revenue to increase by at least 13% to £560m, while profit before tax is due to jump by over a quarter to £255m¹.

The Warhammer brand is the group’s core asset. While its products are expensive and - to the untrained eye - highly discretionary, its network of shops fosters a strong sense of community and customers are loyal. The company has managed to weather several economic downturns during its 50-year life, and sales, profit margins and dividends have lived to tell the tale.

The big question for Games Workshop is where it goes from here. The group is pursuing international expansion, with a specific focus on Asia and Australia (North America is currently the biggest generator of sales).

Perhaps more interesting, however, is the licensing opportunity. Games Workshop is increasingly keen to harness its intellectual property, licensing the Warhammer brand to the likes of video games producers. This revenue stream is still relatively small, but it is very high-margin and could grow quickly. Just before Christmas, Games Workshop struck a deal with Amazon to bring the Warhammer universe to the big screen.

The sticking point for some investors will be the valuation. According to estimates from investment bank Peel Hunt, the company trades on a forward price/earnings ratio of 32 times. This is far more expensive than the average FTSE 100 stock and assumes some very punchy future growth.

Games Workshop will publish its annual results on 29 July.

More on Games Workshop

Rolls Royce

Everyone loves a comeback kid, and Rolls Royce’s comeback has been more impressive than most. Shares in the British engine-maker tumbled in 2019 and 2020, only to increase more than tenfold in the years that followed.

As the company prepares to publish its interim figures, it is useful to review what has happened in the past five years. A key driver of Rolls Royce’s success has been the recovery of the airline industry. Civil aerospace remains the group’s biggest division, and when planes were grounded during the pandemic revenue plunged.

The business is also in the throes of a huge turnaround programme, overseen by Turfan Erginbilgiç, who took over as chief executive in 2023. Under Erginbilgiç’s leadership, revenue, profit and cashflow have surged, and debt has fallen, prompting analysts to repeatedly upgrade their forecasts.

The big talking point this year, however, has been defence. UK arms companies, including Babcock, Chemring and QinetiQ, have delivered huge share price gains this year, as governments across Europe have boosted their military spending. Rolls Royce, which makes military aero and naval engines, as well as nuclear submarines, is no exception.

Momentum is building in this sector, according to analysts at Panmure Liberum, who said the government’s strategic defence review (SDR) ‘underpins a spending environment for UK contractors that is materially more positive than from any previous SDRs that we can recall’².

Rolls Royce’s nuclear technology is driving growth elsewhere too. Last month, it won government backing to build the UK’s first small modular nuclear reactors as part of the green energy push.

Shareholders are being handsomely rewarded for this progress. Rolls Royce has reintroduced its dividend after a five-year hiatus and announced a £1bn share buyback programme in February. The question now is whether the blistering share price rally can continue.

Interim figures from Rolls Royce are due out on 31 July. 

More on Rolls Royce

Lloyds Banking Group

UK banks endured a long period of suspicion after the global financial crisis. Everything changed last year, however, when Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC, NatWest and Standard Chartered saw their share prices soar.

The main reason for this was interest rates. The banking system is extremely complex, but the big UK names still engage in a basic activity: they take deposits from savers and lend to borrowers. When interest rates are high, banks can earn big profits from lending, and these profits are not fully counteracted by higher savings rates.

There was a flurry of profit upgrades in 2024 as a result, and shareholders received £35bn of cash via dividends and buybacks.

The sector is now preparing to publish its half-year figures for 2025. These will be closely watched by the market - and not without some trepidation. For starters, interest rates have started falling and this will eventually start to affect the industry’s bottom line (banks have mechanisms to delay the impact of rate moves, but they remain a crucial growth lever).

The performance of lenders is also closely linked to the wider economy. With trade tensions high and the geopolitical situation fraught, this is a potential concern.

Lloyds has something else to worry about as well. Last year, the Court of Appeal made a judgment that rocked motor finance industry, clamping down on commission paid by lenders to car dealerships. Lloyds has a sizable motor finance arm and is nervously awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court on the same issue. The judgment is expected in early July and could affect Lloyds’ share price - for better or for worse.

Lloyds is due to announce its half-year results on 24 July.

More on Lloyds

AstraZeneca

It’s not an easy time to be a pharmaceuticals giant. Donald Trump has threatened the sector with import tariffs of up to 25%, and companies are scrambling to build manufacturing sites in the US as a result.

Swiss healthcare business Roche has made the most dramatic move so far, setting aside $50bn for American manufacturing and research³. However, the FTSE 100’s biggest player, AstraZeneca, is also embarking on major expansion in the region, with plans to invest $3.5bn⁴.

Markets don’t like uncertainty, and the tariff threat has weighed on AstraZeneca’s share price this year. “The stock is trading at historical lows after a jump in the sector risk premium caused by political uncertainty in the US,” analysts at Carnegie said in April.  

In other ways, however, the group is still going from strength-to-strength. Total revenue rose by 10% in the first quarter of the year, driven by the jewel in AstraZeneca’s crown: its oncology business⁵.

Investment bank Nordea expects sales to increase by 5% across the whole year to $56.6bn, while adjusted operating profit is expected to rise by 6% to $17.9bn. Next month’s interim results should reveal whether it is on track to achieve this.

There are reasons to be cheerful. 2025 is due to be an ‘unprecedented catalyst-rich’ period for the company. In the world of drugs testing, there are three stages to clinical trials. Phase 3 is the last step in the process before a drug can be approved by the regulator, and AstraZeneca has already had five positive Phase 3 readouts this year, including for a highly anticipated breast cancer drug called Enhertu.

Much will depend on forces outside of AstraZeneca’s control, however - namely Donald Trump’s trade policy.

“Pivotal readouts expected in 2025 should support multiple expansion, albeit we recognise the uncertainty stoked by the US political backdrop could continue to weigh on the share price,” analysts at Shore Capital concluded.

AstraZeneca will publish its interim figures on 29 July.

More on AstraZeneca

Shell

When tensions rise in the Middle East, the market’s attention quickly turns to the energy sector. Afterall, any increase in the oil price should push up company profits.

As expected, Israel’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities caused the price of Brent crude - the international oil benchmark - to jump. And when the US decided to support Israel by also bombing Iran’s nuclear sites, it climbed again, reaching a five-month high of over $80 a barrel.

Shell’s share price has been creeping up as a result, and investors are eagerly awaiting its half-year results in July.

It is important to put this in context, however. The oil majors are at a tricky point in their lives, as governments and businesses figure out how to balance fossil fuels with green energy. Rival BP has had a particularly rocky period, after plans to pivot away from renewables and back to oil sparked a shareholder revolt.

Shell has had an easier ride so far, not least because of its big liquefied natural gas business, which has reduced its reliance on oil. There were even rumours that Shell would try to buy BP at a depressed price. Ultimately, however, both companies are exposed to the same structural pressures.

The group has faced other challenges this year too. Before Israel attacked Iran, the oil price was languishing, due in part to high output from Saudi Arabia and US trade uncertainty. There is a lot of debate about where oil prices go from here. Much depends on whether trade can continue through the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil route which ships travel through from Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman.

Shell’s half-year results are scheduled for 31 July.

More on Shell  

Source:

1. Games Workshop, full year trading update, 23 May 2025
2. Panmure Liberum, 4 June 2025
3. Roche investor update, 22 April 2025
4. AstraZeneca, 12 November 2024
5. AstraZeneca Q1 results, 29 April 2025

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