With the banks moving higher in the wake of yesterday's central bank action, why is HBOS falling? At least one set of traders was scrabbling around earlier today trying to find out what nasty tale had sent the mortgage bank down 7p to 582p.
Panic not. The truth is the bank's shares have just gone ex-dividend, and stripping that out, it is performing in line with the rest of the sector. Still, it goes to show how fragile market nerves are at the moment.
Overall both London and Wall Street are still being buoyed by the central banks' moves to improve liquidity. The FTSE 100 is up 99.5 points at 5789.9 while the Dow Jones Industrial Average has moved 115 points higher.
Among the fallers, credit information group Experian is down 10.25p to 402p after a negative note from Credit Suisse.
It said: "We continue to believe that investors should be selling Experian. The stock is currently 22% above our target price of £3.20. Our 2009 full year estimates are 8% below consensus. Experian is up roughly 3% in absolute terms since the start of the
year and as such has held up very well in the face of a tough market. In comparison, Experian's key US-listed peer Equifax is down 9% in absolute terms since the start of the year. We believe the two key reasons for Experian's share price resilience have been (1) US fed rate cuts; and (2) the announcement of two self-help initiatives. Whilst this has provided a near-term prop to the share price, over the medium term we believe the impact of deteriorating fundamentals will come to light in the numbers and this will lead to consensus downgrades, in our view."
