Soft-drinks giant Coca-Cola (KO:NYSE) releases third quarter earnings on 24 October with consensus earnings per share expected to be flat against the prior year at $0.69.

The company raised annual sales and profit guidance on 26 July after beating analysts’ second quarter estimates. Over the last four quarters Coca-Cola has beaten market forecasts by an average of around 5%.

This time though there are some potential banana skins to navigate. Management flagged an approximate 3% currency headwind for the third quarter based on existing exchange rates.

The US dollar has since jumped a further 7% against a basket of currencies suggesting a larger impact is on the cards.

Coca-Cola has benefited from multiple price hikes in recent quarters to combat supply chain snags caused by the war in Ukraine.

Consumers appear to have swallowed the price increases and refused to trade down to private label alternatives, showing the strength of the brand. However, there are signs of fatigue in the resilient consumer spending narrative.

Throughout 2022 consumer staples were seen as a haven for investors looking to shelter from turbulent markets but the tables seem to have turned in 2023.

Coca-Cola shares are down 16% so far this year compared with a gain of 13% for the S&P 500.

US UPDATES OVER THE NEXT 7 DAYS

QUARTERLY RESULTS

20 October: American Express, Schlumberger, Santos, IPG, Yara International, First Bancorp, First Hawaiian

23 October: Newcrest Mining, Lennox, Packaging America, Crown, Medpace Holdings, Enterprise Financial, Heartland Financial, Hope Bancorp

24 October: Alphabet, Coca Cola, Hermes International, Danaher, Texas Instruments, Verizon, General Electric, Chubb, HCA, Waste Management, General Motors, Biogen, Dow, Otis Worldwide, CoStar, Dover, Hubbell, Xerox

25 October: Microsoft, Meta Platforms, Visa, Thermo Fisher, IBM, Boeing, ServiceNow, ADP, CME Group, Equinix, Getty, Chipotle Mexican Grill

26 October: Amazon, Merck&Co, Linde, Comcast, Intel, Caterpillar, United Parcel Service, Honeywell, Shopify, Moody’s, Ford Motor, ST Microelectronics, VeriSign, Southwest Airlines, Mastercard

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