The FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE) was buoyed by upbeat third-quarter results from BP today, gaining 26 points to reach 6,752 by late morning. There’s some optimism in the air ahead of the US Federal Reserve’s next two-day meeting set to start later today, with fears of a quick tapering of economic stimulus measures having receded over the past month.
But it’s not all sunshine, and some individual shares are falling. Here are three from the FTSE 100 having a weak day:
Lloyds Banking Group
Lloyds Banking Group shares dipped a little this morning, by 1.7p (2.1%) to 77.9p, despite third-quarter underlying core profit rising 9% from the same period a year ago, to £1,853m — and over the nine months, the figure is up 20% to £5,549m. But I doubt shareholders will be losing much sleep over today’s small fall, as their shares have still almost doubled in price over the past 12 months.
The bank’s estimated fully-loaded core tier 1 ratio has risen to 9.9% from 8.1% at the end of 2012, and that’s good progress too.
In a period that saw TSB spun out as a separate high street brand again, Lloyds told us that it has continued “to support the UK economy through lending to SMEs and first-time buyers, and the Help to Buy scheme“.
Standard Chartered
Standard Chartered shares also lost ground this morning, falling 17p (1.1%) to 1,517p, after a mixed third quarter. Although chief executive Peter Sands said the bank “delivered a resilient performance despite an uncertain macro environment” and we heard that operating profit for the nine months grew at “a low single digit rate“, Asian markets have been tough and there have been some unfavourable currency movements in the region since the interim period, leading to a low single digit fall in profit for the third quarter itself.
The fall today takes the share price to a pretty much unchanged level over the past year — a year in which other banks’ shares have been recovering well. But is Standard Chartered cheap now? Well, a forecast small fall in earnings per share for the full year puts the shares on a forward P/E of 11 with a dividend yield of 3.7% predicted, and a mooted 11% recovery next year would drop the P/E to only 10 and boost the dividend yield to 4%.
Tullow Oil
Tullow Oil (LSE: TLW) shareholders have had a tough 12 months with their shares falling more than 30% in value, and the latest from the oil & gas explorer and producer today didn’t help. In an update on its exploratory drilling in Norway, Tullow told us that its Wisting Alternative well in the Barents Sea has reached its total depth, and though it encountered oil in the Kobbe and Snadd formations, the reservoir rock was of poor quality.
This comes on top of the news that Tullow has had to suspend its activities at sites in Kenya close to the Ugandan border, after local protests led to a break-in at one of them — the protesters are apparently miffed at the company’s use of outside workers.