Following yesterday’s great results for Lloyds Bank (LLOY), another recipient of state intervention, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), is one of the top risers in early trading.
The banks share price rises by just under 4% to 264p as it finally returns to profit, turning a £968m loss this time last year to a profit of £259m in the first quarter of the year.
The bank is 72% owned by the government and even though its shares are trading at roughly half the price they were back in 2008, Chancellor Philip Hammond has signalled he’s prepared to sell the government’s stake in the bank even at a loss.
Barclays (BARC), a bank that did not need taxpayer aid but faced a multitude of reputational issues, sees it share price drop by 4.4% to 214.2p.
The bank’s results show its following the trend of increasing profit in the sector, with its pre-tax profit up 20% to almost £2bn compared to the first quarter of last year. However, corporate governance concerns remain which seems to be impeding its share price
Online food delivery firm Just Eat (JE.) sees its share price slide by 1.5% to 577p as its executive chairman John Hughes takes an unexpected leave of absence. This follows Hughes taking over the running of the company in February after its chief executive David Buttress suddenly stepped down to deal with urgent family matters.
Engineering firm Rotork (ROR) releases a trading statement indicating that the company’s revenues are up by 14.5% in the first quarter although the vast majority of this was due to currency movements (13.1%). Investors seem unimpressed as its share price is down by 2.2% to 245.3p.
Another engineering firm, Ireland’s Mincon (MCON:AIM) enjoys an almost 3% share price rise to 86p as it releases an interim trading statement. Its first quarter results show an improvement on a year-on-year basis with revenues up 34% and its percentage of profit before tax up one percentage point to 10.8%.
Directa Plus (DCTA:AIM), a producer of grapheme-based products, sees it share price slashed by a quarter down to 67.5p as its losses after tax increased to €4.1m for 2016 compared to €1.7m in 2015. Although the company only floated last year, its chief executive Giulio Cesareo is confident. He ‘continues to look to the future with optimism’.
The FTSE 100 opened down slightly as investors weighed up the results of some of the UK’s largest banks including Barclays and RBS. Banking makes up a large chunk of the blue chip index.
