FTSE set to dip as banks hit spotlight
MUCH of the rally of the past three weeks has been US earnings-led, but this week we’ll have the chance to see how a range of UK banks’ half-yearly numbers go down.
The overall diagnosis is likely to be one of recoveries in profitability, with concerns mounting over soaring bad-loan losses.
Two of the likely winners, Barclays and HSBC, post their results today. The numbers may be clouded by various one-off write-offs and provisions, but we are expecting profits of around £3.5bn for Barclays and £2.9bn for HSBC. Then we have Standard Chartered tomorrow, Lloyds on Wednesday and RBS on Friday, with the latter expected to post a return to profitability with pre-tax profits of around £1.21bn.
Despite the FTSE 100 only having closed lower twice over the past three astonishing weeks, we see a mildly lower opening to the market this morning.
For the week in general we may well see more of a yo-yo style performance from shares as we consolidate the recent gains. Wall Street’s close on Friday, although positive, was far from convincing after a much better-than-expected GDP number, and some opportune profit-taking looked to be kicking in.
GFT is expecting the FTSE to open down 13 points from Friday’s closing level, at 4,595. The German DAX is expected to open down eight points at 5,324 and the French CAC is called to open down six points at 3,420.