Last week's headlines were dominated by Morrisons after the group issued only the second profit warning in its history on Thursday.

The company now expects pre-tax profit figures for the year to January 2005, which are due to be announced on Wednesday, to be significantly below its own internal forecasts, were outlined in the January trading statement.

The main reason behind the shortfall is a £100 million exceptional charge relating to the takeover of Safeway.

The charge relates to the costs of transforming the stores from the Safeway to Morrisons format and additional redundancy costs. In addition, Morrisons has encountered problems with the Safeway accounting systems during 2004. The shares fell nearly three per cent on the day, and led analysts at both Teather and Greenwood and Panmure Gordon to recommend the shares as a "sell". Further information on the company's outlook will be incorporated into Wednesday's results.

The low-cost lending sector has been under pressure with a BBC1 programme, Whistleblower, giving a damning report on Provident Financial's Yes Car Credit and home lending divisions. The TV programme exposed salespeople in Croydon lying to customers, car safety checks not being done and customers being put under pressure to refinance their loans.

The chairman, John van Kuffeler, responded by saying that, although he had not seen the programme, the company was aware of issues at the Croydon branch of Yes and that changes had been made, including the removal of the management team.

The group's business, however, is booming although Yes Car Credit and the doorstep lending division are both under pressure from competitors.

The full year results announced on Wednesday, the day the programme was aired, saw the share price rise by three per cent. Profits at Yes fell sharply to £4.4m from £11.2m and the doorstep lending division saw flat profits at £152.3m. The uplift in the figures came from international lending, which saw a 68 per cent jump in profits.

Overall, the company looks to be in a solid position and measures are being taken to improve performance at Yes. But the fallout from Whistleblower, in addition to the ongoing investigation into the industry by the Competition Commission - the results of which are not expected until the autumn - will hang over the shares for the time being.

Cattles will be tarred with the same brush as the company operates in the same sector as Provident Financial and is also under OFT investigation.

The Birstall-based money lender's latest results, released last week, were above market expectations. The figures showed a 15.2 per cent rise in net profit but this was accompanied by a warning that the new International Financial Reporting Standards would adversely affect pre-tax figures. Under the new rules the pre-tax profit would have been £100.8m rather then the £141.2m reported. This prompted at least one analyst to predict a knee-jerk reaction by investors when the new rules start.

The company is moving away from door-to-door collection to concentrate on the higher-margin direct repayment customers. Chief executive Sean Mahon is confident the target of 600,000 direct repayment customers will be hit by the end of 2007.