Stocks
FTSE dips as oil stocks fall back
(FT.com) - London’s FTSE 100 index was left flat after Standard Chartered met expectations with its full-year results, but resource stocks fell back after three sessions of gains.
Standard Chartered, the banking group with a strong focus in Asia, reported a forecast-matching 13 per cent jump in 2009 pre-tax profit to $5.15bn, fractionally beating market expectations of $5.1bn.
Like most of its peers reporting last month, StanChart’s bad debt jumped, hitting $2bn, but impairments had reduced during the second half. The shares climbed 3.5 per cent to £16.45.
”All in all, a solid set of numbers, no negative surprise in the Middle East and the balance sheet stronger than we had expected. We think these results will be taken fairly well,” said Mark Phin at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods.
The rest of the sector benefitted, and Barclays rose 1.8 per cent to 327.6p, Lloyds Banking Group added 2 per cent to 52.38p and Royal Bank of Scotland gained 0.8 per cent to 38.06p.
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