Tonight:
7°c
There was no let-up for the banks this morning as they came under fresh selling pressure in the wake of the EU's insistence that the Dutch state-aided bank ING must be split in two.
There are now real fears in the City that the same fate awaits Lloyds Banking Group, down 2.6p at 81.1p, and Royal Bank of Scotland, 0.3p cheaper at 40.5p. Both have received billions of pounds in government aid with the taxpayer now owning 43% of Lloyds and 70% of RBS. Investors fear the EU may force Lloyds to divest itself of mortgage lender Halifax, which it bought earlier this year as part of HBOS.
The share prices of both banks remain underwater with the taxpayer only starting to break even on its investment when the Lloyds price hits 122.6p and RBS 50.5p.
The other banks also came under selling pressure with Barclays falling a further 9¼p to 330½p. That compares with the 360p a share that the Qatari sovereign wealth fund sold part of its stake at only last week. HSBC also traded 4p lower at 676½p and Standard Chartered lost 42p at 1514½p.
Shares generally slammed into reverse undermined by softer commodity prices and weak overseas markets. The FTSE 100 index was left nursing a loss of 76.72 to 5124.25. The FTSE 250 also slumped 199.16 to 8942.12. It was the target of a large programme trade yesterday which saw institutional investors switch into defensive stocks.
And as if that weren't bad enough Goldman Sachs gave a demonstration that even the best of them can get it wrong in the stock market. The broker, often referred to as Golden Stacks because of its Midas touch, had a sell rating on BP ahead of yesterday's bumper third-quarter numbers which drove the shares 5% higher to a year's high of 597.4p — ooops!
It has now dropped BP's shares from its influential conviction sell list and raised its rating from sell to neutral. The oil giant post a 60% rise in net profits which the company attributed to cost cuts and increased production.
Citigroup describes BP's performance and positive guidance as “stellar” and rates the shares a buy but prefers rival Royal Dutch Shell, down 9½p at 1881½p, which reports tomorrow. BP came in for profit-taking today with the price losing 6p at 588½p. BG Group's third-quarter numbers failed to match those of BP and the share price reacted with a loss of 26½p at 1106½p. Malcolm Graham-Wood at Hanson Westhouse said BG's results were a mixed bag.
Department stores group Debenhams slipped 2.1p to 82p as the dust settled on yesterday's sale by venture capitalist Texas Pacific of its near-10% stake. One story doing the rounds claimed Arcadia retailer and billionaire Sir Philip Green had bought the stake but he denied it. It now looks as if the 120.2 million shares have been snapped-up by the New York-based private equity operator Och Ziff Capital Management.
Elsewhere, Marks & Spencer followed other blue chips lower, losing 6¾p at 341½, despite Seymour Pierce raising its rating on the shares from hold to buy. Bid target Cadbury marked time at 775p.
Housebuilder Taylor Wimpey traded 2¾p cheaper at 37p after UBS repeated its neutral rating on the shares and slashed its target price from 57p to 43p. Taylor Wimpey made losses of almost £70 million during the first six months of the year and, at the last count, had debts of almost £2 billion.
