Have been touching over 72p will the FTSE is slightly down, so doing well once again

NEWS

London markets scraped their way into positive territory in late morning trading, casting off gloom following much weaker than expected GDP figures.


The FTSE 100 (UKX) climbed eight points to 4302 with banking groups Barclays (BARC) and Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) among the top risers. Troubled building materials firm Wolseley (WOS) was also on the rise after the shock announcement that chief executive Chip Hornsby is standing down.

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The UK economy suffered its biggest contraction since 1958 in the first quarter of the year, according to revised figures.

Gross domestic product (GDP) growth fell by 2.4% between January and March, significantly worse than initial estimates of a 1.9% decrease. Economists had been expecting a revised drop of 2.1%.

But 2 good news today for LLOY ..............

Consumer confidence has hit a 14-month high as Britons become increasingly optimistic about the prospects for the downtrodden economy.

The GfK/NOP consumer confidence index rose to -25 in June from -27 in May. However, while Britons may be less gloomy about the outlook, they are still not inclined to make big ticket purchases, the survey showed.

"Confidence still remains fragile as uncertainty about the strength of any recovery and an increase in unemployment all mean that consumers remain wary," said Rachael Joy at GfK/NOP.

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- House prices climbed by 0.9% in June, according to the latest figures from Nationwide.

This third rise in the last four months takes the annual rate decline down from 11.3% in May to 9.3%.

Nationwide said the gradual increase in house prices in recent months showed the property market is beginning to find its feet again.

"House prices have now risen in three of the last four months, suggesting that the improvement that began to show up in March represents more than just statistical noise," said the Nationwide's economist Martin Gahbauer.

But Howard Archer of forecasting group IHS Global Insight countered: "We are still far from convinced that house prices have bottomed out and we certainly do not think that we are at the start of a renewed sharp upward trend. While buyer interest has clearly picked up markedly in recent months, this is only slowly translating into increased house sales."

Restructuring going on despite UNIONS cries ........

Another 2,100 staff to be made redundant. Bad news for staff but should be good for the company and share price!

Gordon must be really pleased with Alastair, more votes lost!

halifax

do you mean:

Gordon must be really pleased with Darling

i think that to post a chart without the indicator is no good, the chart have the price but they are the tools , as you can see there is a macd, a relative strength index area and a williams i try to use them as much as i can, have a good day

Market report

Financial issues were generally buoyant, although Lloyds edged down 0.02p at 69.91p on reports it may be forced to sell either its Bank of Scotland or Halifax branch networks.

richard70

re - i think that to post a chart without the indicator is no good,

Maybe you need to read the post again (some below ), I never said not to use Indicators,
as I allways used them ( My nickname comes from that ) but to use less on the chart and
show wich ones are ( as the chart does not show ) .

Master RSI said .....
You have added maybe a few too many Indicators (4) and there is no name on them so
we do not know if are RSI, williams or stochastic.

Your chart made smaller below, with MACD, Slow stochastic, RSI,Williams in this order but not showing wich one is ( I do but not the other posters )

smaler is bigger, ie. smaller, allways is smaller, ie. always cheers.

is there any one running this company it appears to have no one at the wheel.

Kroes sees Lloyds and RBS asset sales
By Nikki Tait and Jane Croft -- June 30 2009 16:26

Royal Bank of Scotland was highly dangerous to Europes single market and too complex to understand, Neelie Kroes, the European Unions competition commissioner, warned on Tuesday as she stressed the need for significant asset sales there and at rival Lloyds Banking Group.

Both banks received billions of pounds in UK government assistance after being hit by the financial crisis.

Under EU state aid rules, beneficiaries of government bail-outs are usually required to restructure their operations, to compensate for the competitive advantage they have enjoyed and to create a viable business in the long-term.

Ms Kroes told a British Bankers Association conference in London that she believed Lloyds and RBS were no exceptions.

Having co-operatively agreed changes to several German banks, our attention must turn to UK banks, she said.

The massive aid received by banks such as Lloyds and RBS allows these banks to remain leaders in markets which are concentrated. For Lloyds, the problems rest with its their share of the retail banking market, and with RBS it is UK small and medium-sized enterprise and corporate banking markets.

Germanys Commerzbank and West LB were required to shrink their balance sheets by almost half in return for accepting state aid.

There have been concerns that the Commission could force Lloyds into significant disposals. The bank, which has a dominant market position in a raft of areas such as current accounts, mortgage and credit cards, is 43.5 per cent owned by the government.

RBS, which is 70 per cent state-owned, is market leader in lending to small businesses in the UK.

So the need for competitive market structures is stronger than ever; the likelihood of significant divestments by RBS and Lloyds is strong, Ms Kroes said.

She pointed out that RBS had developed a balance sheet that was larger than the entire UK economy and which tripled in two years from 2006, before recording the largest trading loss in history.

This is not a bank with a sustainable business approach This bank was not merely too big to fail it was too big to supervise, too big to operate, too complex to understand, and highly dangerous to the European single market.

The competition commissioner also pointed directly to Santander, the Spanish bank which owns the Abbey in the UK, as an example of a sizeable bank that survived the crisis without state support.

You will rightly be wondering what the commission is doing to safeguard your rights. You all have a right to a level playing-field, she said.

Negotiations between the UK Treasury and commission officials over the changes necessary at Lloyds and RBS are already under way, and there have been suggestions that decisions could be reached before August.

Both banks are already downsizing Lloyds said on Tuesday it would cut a further 2,100 jobs but there is still some uncertainty about exactly which assets might ultimately have to go.

Ms Kroes also delivered a broader message about regulatory changes generally for the City of London, which has raised an outcry over some EU-inspired initiatives such as proposed rules for hedge funds and revamped bank capital requirements.

Denial about the need for such change is not helpful. The world does not owe the City a living so the City has to engage with this. If it does not play a part in shaping this more responsible culture, it will miss out, she said.

Separately, commission officials on Tuesday gave temporary clearance to regional government aid for Germanys Landesbank Baden-Wttemberg, but said it would want to undertake a further in-depth analysis of the complex valuation of the impaired assets involved, and expected a longer-term restructuring plan to be submitted shortly.

The commission has the duty to verify in detail that the valuation is done proper"

British banks expect to increase lending this quarter

British lenders increased the amount of credit available to households and businesses in the second quarter, and expect to increase it further in the coming months, the Bank of England said on Thursday.

British-banks-expect-to-increase-lending-this-quarter.

Trying to move higher again after the last couple days of Retracement reaching a low of 65.50p after opening

5 days chart

Lloyds is closing in on a deal with the Treasury to sign off its participation in the Asset Protection Scheme

telegraph -UK-Financial-Investments-warns-there-will-be-no-quick-sale-of-RBS-and-Lloyds-shares

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Lloyds Banking Group on a new course due to competition

telegraph-Lloyds-Banking-Group-on-a-new-course-due-to-competition

Is the deal being done soon ? ..........

Deal for Insight could be struck this month
06 July 2009

A deal for Lloyds-owned Insight Investments may be struck as early as this month as private equity houses Hellman & Friedman and TA Associates gain access to the companys books.

Hellman & Friedman and TA Associates have a history of investing in fund management, the former is the majority shareholder of Gartmore while TA is the minority shareholder of Jupiter.

Lloyds, which acquired Insight when it bought HBOS, is believed to have given the private equity houses access to information about Insight according to reports over the weekend in the Daily Mail. The newspaper reports that a deal could be in place by the middle of the month.

The Insight sale is being organised by Deutsche Bank.

From the TELEGRAPH .................

UKFI rules out quick sale of bank shares
There will be no quick exit for the taxpayer from its multi-billion pound stakes in Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland, the body that controls the investments will warn this week.

By Jonathan Russell -- 06 Jul 2009

UK Financial Investments (UKFI) will use a strategy document to be unveiled on Thursday to play down expectations that a short-term recovery in bank shares could lead to a quick sale of the stakes.

Commentators have been suggesting that an economic recovery could lead to a quick sale of UKFI's 70pc stake in RBS and 43pc stake in Lloyds to Middle Eastern investors or private equity, potentially at a significant profit. The view has been backed up by reports UKFI has already entered into talks with investors. However, sources close to UKFI have said these talks have been no more than routine.

Taxpayer could win both ways as UKFI plots strategy for an early exit
Abu Dhabi sheikh cashes in Barclays stake for 1.5bn profitUKFI will use its strategy update to set out plans on how a disposal could be engineered using capital market instruments such as exchangeable bonds to offload some of the stake. UKFI will stress that while banking shares may be in recovery it will not consider reprivatising its stake until concerns about toxic assets have been put to rest.

It is understood the full text of the document has yet to be approved by the Treasury. UKFI declined to comment.

From citywire ............

Morning Line: Can Darling keep banks competitive?
By Deborah Hyde | 10:42:29 | 06 July 2009

Certainly, credit ratings agency Standard & Poor's recently said the reason its ratings on Lloyds and RBS are so high is almost entirely because the government is backing the banks with taxpayer money.

Since so many of the bad lending decisions of the past are now insured against default through the asset protections scheme, these lenders can afford to re-enter the market, even in the face of rising unemployment and escalating bad loans.

The higher credit ratings also mean that these banks are able to borrow more cheaply and more freely than many of their rivals in what remains a difficult wholesale market.

Given that the other lenders especially building societies have been downgraded, the taxpayer-backed lenders can afford to offer better deals than their smaller peers.

Low interest rates and limited access to wholesale markets, alongside tighter capital adequacy, demands means many lenders are fighting for a share of a tiny savers market to help finance their lending.

Those banks that are supported by the state are able to compete unfairly for retail deposits, and steps need to be taken to ensure that government backing for some institutions does not distort competition for savings, said a spokesman for the Building Societies Association recently............

http://www.citywire.co.uk/personal/-/comment/morning-line/content.aspx?ID=348186&Page=2

Lloyds shake-up to 'sideline' boss Daniels
Daily Mail
10 July 2009, 7:44am

Lloyds boss Eric Daniels will be sidelined under plans to parachute an all-powerful chairman into the state-controlled bank.

Paying the price: Eric Daniels has carried some of the blame for the disastrous takeover of HBOS.

The government is thought to be pushing for a City heavyweight to replace current chairman Sir Victor Blank, who has been ousted following last year's ill-fated takeover of HBOS.

Blank's successor will be an executive chairman in all but name, taking the tough strategic decisions needed to drag Lloyds out of the mire, sources said.

There is no appetite in official circles to remove Daniels, but his role is set to be diminished under the new regime.

Although the American will retain the chief executive's title, his job will be to implement the strategies set out by the new chairman, according to sources.

'Eric is a good operations man, but he has made some strategic mistakes,' a source told the Mail.

Blank has already paid the price for his role as architect of the deal, and will leave by next spring.

The government believes that Daniels proved himself to be a solid and conservative banker, until last year's calamitous rescue of HBOS.

The acquisition has proved a disaster for Lloyds, in which the taxpayer now owns a 43% stake.

HBOS turned in a loss of almost 11bn after a series of reckless loans went sour, and the bank has had to place some 260bn of toxic debt into a taxpayer-funded insurance scheme.

Daniels, who has run Lloyds since 2003, recently admitted that the bank had conducted 'three to five' times less due diligence on the HBOS takeover than would normally be the case.

On top of the gigantic financial losses is the rising human cost of the takeover. Some 7,000 workers have already been sacked as part of Daniels's plan to strip 1.5bn from overheads. A further 18,000 are expected to go between now and 2012.

Blank was recently forced out following behind-the-scenes pressure from UK Financial Investments, the body that controls the taxpayer's stakes in UK banks.

A short-list of potential successors has already been drawn up. Ex-Citigroup boss Sir Win Bischoff is thought to be an early contender, but he would be a controversial choice given the turmoil still engulfing the Wall Street giant.

Mervyn Davies, the Trade Minister and former Standard Chartered chief, is understood to have turned down the job.

A spokesman for Lloyds said: 'Our executive team, led by Eric Daniels, is responsible for setting out the strategic direction of the company and for implementing our business plan.

'There'll be no change to the way we do business.'

13 July 09
Government's Bank shareholdings to be managed "commercially"

UK Financial Investments Limited (UKFI -the company set up to manage the Governments investments in RBS and Lloyds - says that it intends to manage the stakes commercially as an engaged institutional shareholder at arms-length from Government.

UKFI adds that it will not interfere in the day-to-day running of the banks, but will continue to engage strongly on strategic issues which could impact value including board membership, risk
management and remuneration policy.

John Kingman, UKFI Chief Executive, says: Every UK household will have more than 3,000 invested in shares in RBS and Lloyds.

"Today UKFI is setting out our strategy to deliver on the tasks we have been given: maximising the value of these investments for the taxpayer, and returning the banks as strengthened institutions to full private ownership over time.

The UKFI says that it does not set any fixed timetable for disposing of the shares but expects
to undertake a number of capital markets transactions over a sustained period.