FTSE 100: London shares fall steeply as Lloyds and Shell post big losses, but 3i ticks higher

A view of the City of London this morning

Jason Hawkes

30 July 2020

The FTSE 100 was down 89.43 points at 6042.04 today after Shell and Lloyds both posted disappointing results.

Lloyds set aside a further £2.4 billion in its second quarter to cover the cost of loans it thinks could turn bad as a result of the coronavirus crisis.

The impairment charge is £1 billion more than analysts had expected and pushed the bank to a loss of £602 million for the first half of the financial year. The first half loss compares with pretax profits of £2.9 billion last year.

Meanwhile oil giant Shell has taken a giant £14.2 billion loss in the second quarter of the year, after writing down the value of its reserves.

The company is a bellwether for the global economy.

There was little cheer anywhere as Standard Chartered also posted losses. The bank's earnings fell in the second quarter as the bank suffered heavy credit impairment charges and announced redundancies amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Pre-tax profits at the emerging markets-focused lender fell 40% on year during the period to $733 million.

Out later is US and Germany second quarter GDP figures.

Germany's economy is expected to contract by 9% while some analysts have penned a 34.5% decline for the US.

The numbers are extraordinary.

Michael Hewson, analyst at CMC Markets, said: "In times such as these, the use of adjectives like unprecedented has become an almost daily event, however the use of it doesn’t change the fact that trying to determine the economic damage caused by the virus can’t really be estimated by calculations on a spreadsheet, given the knock-on effects it continues to have on human behaviour now as well as future economic activity over the next few quarters."

MORE ABOUT

FTSE 100

Lloyds

FTSE 100: London shares fall steeply as Lloyds and Shell post big losses, but 3i ticks higher

Read More