As leading shares slipped back after five days of rises, troubled Standard Chartered bucked the downward trend after saying it had no plans for a fundraising to boost its balance sheet.
Under pressure chief executive Peter Sands told reporters the bank was comfortable with its capital ratios, as the bank opened a new wealth management centre in Hong Kong. The bank has issued three profit warnings this year, but Sands said he had confidence in the strength of the management team. Standard Chartered ended 5.5p higher at 946.1p.
Overall the FTSE 100 fell 16.36 points to 6611.04, not helped by falls in the financial sector after a number of banks were hit with £2bn worth of fines for rigging foreign exchange markets. However, the latest Bank of England comments suggesting interest rates were unlikely to rise until well into next year did provide some support.
Among the banks, Barclays dropped 5.1p to 229.5p, HSBC dipped 1.9p to 635.6p and Royal Bank of Scotland fell 3.6p to 374.1p.
Supermarkets were also unwanted. J Sainsbury lost 3p to 266.1p after it pledged new price cuts, which also left rivals lower. Tesco fell 3.5p to 191.45p and Morrisons was 1p lower at 173p.
But Tullow Oil climbed 10.6p to 492.8p as it unveiled plans to cut back expenditure on exploration projects.
There was a mixed picture for outsourcers. G4S rose 5.5p to 270p after an upbeat trading statement and despite an elaborate hoax email and fake website trying to suggest the company was in financial trouble.
But Capita closed down 73p at £10.48 on worries about the strength of its bid pipeline.
Elsewhere Thorntons added 5p to 124p after holding a strategy meeting for analysts on Tuesday. Retail expert Nick Bubb said:
[Thorntons held] a strategy update for analysts, to explain how the next three years will see the “fast moving consumer goods” strategy evolve and, although the warning that “no new material information will be disclosed” did what it said on the tin, the meeting was well attended and the “goodie bag” of tasting chocolates was well received.
It was interesting that Thorntons made a point of saying that they “make chocolates, not chocolate” and the news that the much-vaunted factory still needs more investment to increase specialist production capacity will have left some investors feeling disappointed, given the prospect of the £30m-£35m net debt persisting. But the news that Thorntons have a 44% market share in their core business of “inlaid boxed chocolates” with their top four UK supermarket chains, whereas their share with the other two (unnamed) main supermarket chains averages only 24%, gave a sense that there is something to go for. And the move to develop new ranges and open up the international sales potential should underpin the hope to grow “fast moving consumer goods” sales at 10% a year and achieve better profitability through operational gearing, other things being equal.
Finally Flybe fell 20.25p or 15% to 111.5p after the budget airline reported a half year loss of £15.3m, compared to a profit of £13.8m the previous year, hit by one-off costs including flight delay claims, exchange rates and a £9.9m impairment charge related to the sale of its 60% stake in its loss-making Finnish business to partner Finnair.
