That's better. Just nudged 57p. I presume you sold on the news skinny, at an embarrassing profit?

No - I'm holding.

Webcast @9:30, then some broker re-writes - webcast

Shore Capital Buy 56.42 - - Retains

Deutsche Bank note today:
"Company reported group underlying profit of £1,479m is 53% ahead of DBe. If we adjust for £394m in profit on sale of the partial stake in St James Place, we have underlying profit of £1,085m which is 13% ahead of our forecast. TNAV of 54.9p is ahead of our 53.6p, fully loaded Basel 3 core tier 1 of 8.1% is 10bps ahead of our 8.0% forecast. Management have maintained guidance for a full year net interest margin of 1.98% as before – and despite another £776m gain on sale of higher yielding gilts (company says it has now largely completed its rebalancing of the portfolio). Cost guidance for FY13 has been upgraded by £200m to £9.6bn. Non-Core run-off is cheaper than we’d expected with a loss of £392m at half what we had forecast. Impairments for the non-core of £511m in the quarter are now almost the same as in the core – which is huge progress from just a year ago. At a group level, these are strong results.
The split between Core and Non-Core performance is not as good as we’d hoped. Of course, investors buying the stock are buying both the core and non-core bank, but as the ongoing business, we were disappointed that core profit slightly missed our estimates for revenues, costs and impairments. Of these, weaker non-interest income is largest, and will be in focus on the conference call. More positively, core loans are growing again and net interest income is flat YoY, costs are down 3% YoY.
Overall, we think these are good results. The outlook for 2013 and 2014 is supportive of the stock we think and the terminal proposition of an efficient and profitable bank focused on UK retail remains intact. NIM guidance is reiterated, cost guidance upgraded for this year, and 2014 cost guidance of £9.15bn in 2014 is new and ahead of current consensus of £9.3bn. We are ahead of consensus on costs. Full B3 capital is guided to pass 9% in 2013 and 10% in 2014. The company gives no update on the FPC review but says that it continues to be confident in its capital position. Overall, on 0.9x TNAV and 7.3x 2014 EPS, 9.3x 2014 group EPS, with consensus likely to upgrade small for next year on costs, we like the overall shape of what we see. Retain Buy.

StockMarketWire.com
Oriel Securities lifts Lloyds Banking Group to hold from sell, target 41p.

Lloyds' first-quarter results were modestly ahead of consensus estimates, but Nomura has maintained its 'reduce' rating for the bank, saying that the strong share-price reaction on Tuesday morning was overdone.

Nomura thinks that Lloyds' cost guidance - to reduce total costs to £9.6bn this year, better than previous £9.8bn target - will likely drive headline upgrades to consensus estimate of 1-2% but this is driven by the sale of its stake in St James's Place relative to current expectations. The broker said that the "core cost of risk has not improved from the 2012 run rate".

Investec Hold 55.73 53.50 50.00 - Under Review

Unless LLOY start paying dividends by next year Osborne would not be able to start offloading our shares before the general election in May 2015.

Deutsche Bank Buy 54.52 64.00 64.00 Reiterates

Morgan Stanley Equal weight 54.52 53.00 54.00 Retains

Sainsbury's Bank

In accordance with DTR 1 1.3.6, the Company made the following statement at 3pm on Sunday 5 May 2013:

J Sainsbury's notes the press speculation concerning Sainsbury's Bank and confirms it is in advanced negotiations with Lloyds Banking Group to take full ownership of Sainsbury's Bank. A further announcement will be made in due course.


END

sp touching 57p.

2 year high @57.57 atm.

Lloyds to cut 850 jobs in plan to reduce costs

LONDON | Thu May 9, 2013 12:29pm BST
(Reuters) - State-backed Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) said on Thursday it would cut 850 jobs in commercial banking, retail, and other operations as part of plans to reduce costs.

Lloyds, 81 percent owned by the British taxpayer, said the cutbacks were part of a strategic plan announced in 2011 to let 15,000 staff go and save 1.5 billion pounds a year.

81pc owned by the taxpayer. Wrong bank, Mr Reuter.

LONDON | Thu May 9, 2013 1:01pm BST
(Reuters) - State-backed Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY.L) said on Thursday it would cut 850 jobs in commercial banking, retail, and other operations as part of plans to reduce costs.

Lloyds, 39 percent owned by the British taxpayer, said the cutbacks were part of a strategic plan announced in 2011 to let 15,000 staff go and save 1.5 billion pounds a year.

(The story corrects to state Lloyds 39 percent owned by taxpayer, not 81 pct)

Now sp 58p shorters must be enjoying the run to 60p!

SALE OF UK COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE LOANS PORTFOLIO

Lloyds Banking Group plc (the Group) announces today that it has agreed the sale of a portfolio of UK commercial real estate loans (the Portfolio) to Promontoria Thames Limited, an entity affiliated to Cerberus Global Investments for a cash consideration of £325 million. The transaction is part of the Group's continued non-core asset reduction.

The gross assets subject to the transaction are £527 million. The Portfolio generated losses of £47 million in the year to 31 December 2012. The sale proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes and the transaction is not expected to have a material impact on the Group due to significant impairment provisions held against the portfolio.

The transaction is expected to complete in the final quarter of 2013.

RNS LLOY will repay the final 3.5 billion tranche of funds borrowed under the ECB LTRO next week things are on the move positively, we may be able to look forward to resumption of dividend payments sooner than some sceptics think.

LLOY AGM next Thursday 16th May.