Banking and financial services. Standard Chartered employs 38,000 people in 950 locations in more than 50 countries in the Asia Pacific Region, South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, the United Kingdom and the Americas. Standard Chartered is one of the worlds most international banks, with employees representing 80 nationalities. It serves both Consumer and Wholesale Banking customers. Consumer Banking provides credit cards, personal loans, mortgages, deposit taking and wealth management services to individuals and small to medium sized enterprises. Wholesale Banking provides corporate and institutional clients with services in trade finance, cash management, lending, securities services, foreign exchange, debt capital markets and corporate finance.

Red = 25 day moving average. Green = 200 day moving average.

Good profit, you changed your view then?

Not really to be honest, but I've taken a couple of largish points positions off the table today.

I'm still looking to the short side, but have had 3 FTSE longs and only 1 FTSE short yesterday and today and I'm not short atm - which I may regret looking at it now.

Investec has lowered its target price for Standard Chartered from 1,900p to 1,700p but has retained its 'buy' recommendation, saying that it doesn't see any capital issues at the emerging markets-focused lender.

Analyst Ian Gordon said that the recent debate about capital which has weighed on the share price in recent weeks has been "contrived", highlighting that the bank's fully loaded Basel-3 core tier-1 capital ratio stood at 10.5% in June - "the strongest of any UK bank". "We expect sufficient visibility to emerge by Q1 2014 to drive both consensus upgrades and a re-rating. We see no capital issue at all."

Ian Gordon of Investec :
We have always (historically) had a rather long list of reasons why Standard Chartered will never become a serious M&A target – its (former) premium valuation, a “Management premium”, size, complexity and an absence of obvious deal synergies. Indeed, depending on the identity of any would-be bidder, we can envisage significant dis-synergies! That list may have become a little shorter, but surely M&A talk is only being entertained today due to the market’s current (and we believe temporary) mispricing of the shares? BUY.
CEO Peter Sands has (rightly) put his neck on the line by dismissing speculation of a possible rights issue as “rubbish”. As discussed in our report, Everyone seems to know the score, they’ve seen it all before?, 13 January, Standard Chartered starts from a position of extreme capital strength, (CET1 CRD IV ratio of 10.6% at 30 June 2013 vs 2nd placed HSBC (Buy) on 10.1%). Moreover, on our forecasts, we see the CET1 CRD IV ratio expanding to 11.3% by 2016e notwithstanding our expectation of sustained asset growth (coupled with recovering RoRWAs). We concur with Peter’s assessment.
Peter has also dismissed recent M&A speculation as “rubbish”. On the basis that we fail to see a convincing case for material deliverable revenue or cost synergies, we are inclined to agree. Indeed, Standard Chartered’s rare status as an International bank with (arguably) local bank characteristics (and privileges) presents quite material transactional risks. We do not expect a bid.
Yet STAN currently trades on just 7.6x 2016e EPS, making it, in sharp contrast to history, THE cheapest UK bank. In our view, either the share price upwardly corrects to reflect our, (or even consensus), expectations, or M&A speculation may still be encouraged by an opportunity to obtain value WITHOUT clear deal synergies. This in itself offers share price support. Also, regulatory anomalies such as the UK bank levy now offer a deal rationale which never used to exist."

Credit Suisse note:
"We have been negative on the stock for some time now, and STAN has been one of the worst performing banks globally over the past 12 months. Given this underperformance and some of the positive aspects of its franchise, we expect greater M&A discussion. Fundamentally, however, with the shares at 1.3x PTNAV (2014E) we remain Underperform, and our TP is unchanged at 1,250p.
■ The attractions: The group has derated from 2.0x P/B to 1.1xP/B, and we are going through a period of management change, potentially making the group more vulnerable. Furthermore, we view several parts of the franchise as attractive, in particular the deposit base (1H13 LDR 77% with CASA of 51%) and the transaction / trade finance business.
■ The challenges: The market cap is still $54bn and the group has $650bn of assets, so the pool of potential acquirers with sufficient size is small. Regulation has increased, with a bias against banks getting bigger via items such as GSIFI charges, which makes deal maths less favourable. The outlook for several of the group's markets has also deteriorated over time.
■ Our conclusions: (i) Potential suitors are most likely to be in Asia, with ANZ, major Chinese banks (ICBC, CCB) and Japanese banks (MUFJ, SMFG) the largest, (ii) ICBC and CCB would find it easier to digest STAN given their relative size, it would be a merger of equals for ANZ, while the deal maths appear better for the Japanese banks, (iii) a deal would likely have to be equity funded, and hence would require significant issuance by an acquirer ($50bn+), (iv) dilution would be significant without sizeable synergies.
■ Fundamentally we remain U/P: We see risk to the capital base and greater uncertainty from the group reorganisation. On capital, we estimate UK peers will be at 12.6% CET1 by 2015E vs STAN at 10.2%. To achieve 12% CET1 by 2015, STAN's capital would need to be US$7.5bn higher."

Pre-close trading update

StanChart third-quarter profit tumbles, an extra $400 million in cost cuts eyed

LONDON (ShareCast) - Analysts at Numis Securities and Investec have cut their target prices for shares of Standard Chartered after the emerging markets-focused bank warned that second-half underlying profits would be below last year's.
The stock fell sharply on Tuesday morning after StanChart issued its second profit warning this year after third-quarter pre-tax profits fell 16% to $1.8bn. In August, the company had predicted that underlying profits would improve in the second half.

Numis has trimmed its target from 1,400p to 1,200p and downgraded its rating for the stock from 'add' to 'hold', saying it had reduced its forecasts for this year and was reviewing its forecasts for the next.

Analyst Mike Trippitt highlighted "subdued income momentum and higher third-quarter impairments, a higher bank levy, plus regulatory and restructuring costs".

He now expects StanChart to generate $5.81bn in pre-tax profit for 2014, 6% lower than his earlier $6.18bn forecast and below the $6.06bn reported in 2013.

Meanwhile Investec analyst Ian Gordon lowered his target from 1,450p to 1,350p, but still recommended investors buy the stock.

While costs and impairments were higher than expected, he said that StanChart had "encouragingly" delivered a slightly-better-than-expected revenue performance, with turnover up 1% year-on-year.

"We believe that the primary source of investor disappointment over the past 18 months has come on the revenue line [...] As such, we do not expect to be disappointed vis-à-vis our current forecast of a 3% H2/H2 revenue improvement," he said.

Soc Gen note:
"Update We cut our target price 25% to 1085p from 1450p and our recommendation from 'Buy' to 'Hold'.
Standard Chartered has faced a number of revenue headwinds over the past year. Now it seems that costs are starting to bite as well (wage inflation, compliance costs), and we wonder if a more aggressive approach is needed to tackle this problem. Relative to its returns, Standard Chartered looks inexpensive against both European and Asian peers, but we do not expect this value to be realised over the next few quarters.
SocGen view The cost miss was particularly disappointing given that the revenue headwinds finally seem to be easing, and Q3 revenues were actually slightly up. We would expect that this margin progress will be sustained as trade margins improve and FICC comparatives become easier. Offsetting some of that margin progress, however, is a loan book that is flat on the year as underlying growth is offset by a tougher approach on clients taking only the low return products, and continued shrinkage in South Korea.
How we value the stock We use a sum-of-the-parts model to derive our 1085p target price. Our lower TP reflects the earnings downgrades plus lower multiples applied to the wholesale businesses to reflect our view that management looks likely to opt for business-as usual changes rather than a more aggressive plan. We value each division separately, using our estimates for sustainable returns, cost of equity and long-term growth. Standard Chartered trades at 0.91x 2014 tangible book value for a forecast return on tangible equity of 11.6%. To reflect the trends mentioned above, we have cut our EPS forecasts by 9%/10%/13% for 2014-16 respectively.
Events, catalysts & risks: Standard Chartered is participating in the Bank of England’s UK bank stress test, the results of which will be announced in December. We expect Standard Chartered to pass, and note that the BoE’s tougher macro scenario versus the EBA’s European test centres around UK property exposure, to which Standard Chartered has little. Possible upside risks to our target price include a more aggressive approach to restructuring (particularly the cost line) than we expect, and perhaps some M&A speculation given the group’s weak share price. Downside risks to our target price include further problems in the Chinese commodities sector (which would push up impairments) or any delay to the timetable for US rate rises (which would be negative for the margin)."

StockMarketWire.com
Standard Chartered has booked FY pretax profits, including exceptional items, of $4.24bn, down 30% on the year. It recorded losses from bad loans of $2.14bn, from $1.62bn.

Operating income fell 2% to $18.23bn.

Chairman Sir John Peace said:

"2014 was a challenging year and our performance was disappointing, but it was also a year when we took decisive action to refocus our strategy and to reposition the Group for the future and to restore shareholder value."

CEO Peter Sands commented:
"We are reshaping the Bank to respond to the way our world has changed and to ensure we fulfil our aspiration to bank the people and companies driving trade, investment and the creation of wealth across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

"I leave Standard Chartered proud of what we have achieved and confident about what the future holds for this extraordinary institution."

(Reuters) - Standard Chartered has no plans to tap shareholders for cash, it said on Wednesday, despite reporting a 25 percent drop in profits last year on the back of soaring bad loans.

The Asia-focused bank said it would not take "knee-jerk actions" and vowed instead to cut costs and shrink its loan book in an effort to quell concerns about its capital strength, the main task facing its new chief executive Bill Winters.

The bank is already braced for a fundamental overhaul when the former investment banker takes over as chief executive in June, with analysts and investors expecting him to launch a multi-billion pound rights issue to reboot capital after a prolonged slump in profits.

"It's the million-dollar question: has Bill Winters signed up for these targets?" said Mike Trippitt, analyst at brokerage Numis Securities.

"You can't sit there waiting for the cavalry to arrive and you've got to get on and run the business ... but he (Winters) is going to go through business unit by business unit and decide which ones to keep, what to grow and what to sell."

The bank's share price was up 3.7 percent at 1010 pence by 12.45 p.m., still down by 25 percent since the start of last year.

However, the price has rallied by 9 percent since Winters' appointment was announced last week, part of an investor-led purge of top brass including veteran chief executive Peter Sands, three non-executive directors and the bank's head of Asia, Jaspal Bindra.

Chairman John Peace will also step down amid disquiet at management's failure to deal quickly with concerns about strategy and rising bad loans.

After a one-third rise in losses from bad loans last year to $2.1 billion (1.4 billion pounds), mainly due to problems in China, India and among commodities firms, the bank admitted: "With hindsight, there were clients and situations we should have avoided."

That dragged down underlying pretax profit last year to $5.2 billion, the second successive annual fall after a decade-long run of record profits came to a screeching halt in 2013 as Asia's credit binge turned sour.

AFTER THE STORM
Sands described 2014 as a perfect storm of falling commodity prices, persistent low interest rates and negative sentiment towards emerging markets.

It was premature to call the peak on bad debts but the bank said it had seen no sign of further deterioration this year and had cut its loans to commodities firms by $6 billion to $55 billion.

It also cut its staff bonus payments pool by 9 percent to 667 million pounds and said none of the directors who was at the bank all year will get a bonus for last year, although that did not include Finance Director Andy Halford, who joined in July.

Sands, who more than doubled the size of the bank since taking over the helm in 2006, said the bank would now aim to save $1.8 billion from 2015 to 2017, making small disposals and cutting between $25 billion and $30 billion in risk-weighted assets from its balance sheet.

The bank is now aiming for a return on equity of above 10 percent, lower than the mid-teens percentage the bank had previously sought, and a core capital adequacy ratio of 11-12 percent of risk-adjusted assets from this year onwards, having fallen to 10.7 percent at the end of 2014 from 11.2 percent at the end of 2013.

The cost savings will come from $400-500 million of efficiency improvements a year and $300-600 million from selling or closing more underperforming businesses.

The bank wrote down the value of its loss-making Korea business by $726 million, following a $1 billion writedown in 2013. It is closing branches and reshaping operations there.

"2014 was clearly disappointing," Sands said. "I am confident the way we are reshaping the bank will get us back to a trajectory of profitable, sustainable growth.

"We acknowledge that investors have been concerned about capital, risk, costs and income growth," he said.

However, Winters is expected to take a harder line on the bank's costs and sprawling structure, which have been likened to a collection of fiefdoms.

"I suspect that Winters will want to be reasonably unfettered when he starts, so I cannot see the targets of an outgoing CEO being binding," one top-20 investor said.

Interesting note from Bernstein:
"Our short on STAN was based on three things: 1) Margin compression on the back of competition excess liquidity 2) Idiosyncratic risk on the balance sheet and 3) Cyclical risk in markets such as HK and Singapore on the back of US rate rises. As we wrote in a note last November, point one is done and the idiosyncratic risk is also in the Street's numbers. On the last point, the latest round of derisking in the bank – which is likely to continue this year - has taken out significant cyclical tail risk. Given the de-risking disposal options open to Standard Chartered, the pace of organic build of capital and the fact that the bank is going to come to market with eligible AT1s in the first half – this all makes the chances of a capital issue less likely. And then there are the tailwinds that have started appearing. Volatility in FX and rates are already starting to impact. So is dollar strengthening on the LN stock. Trade and cash volumes looks likely to rebound next year given rock bottom comps. The bank should also be able to reprice margins upwards from a 3 year free fall as US base rates rise. 2015 earnings should be the bottom and given the rebound potential, we believe the Street will move on to pricing 2016/2017 in the next 12 months. That’s a significant upside to start building positions in at current levels. Hence we are getting in. Outperform with TP: 1200"

Cazenove note today:
"Although we were hesitant to change our view for the arrival of the new CEO which has been a material positive, we believe that last week’s UK budget may lead the market to attach a higher probability of strategic actions to change domicile and unlock value. We believe normalised ROTE for STAN in an alternative domicile such as Singapore/HK would be higher (c12-13+%) than the current c10-11% and STAN’s fully loaded CT1 target of 11-12% is inline with Asian bank requirements. At 0.9x P/TNAV 16E we believe a re-domicile would be accretive despite our assumed $2.5bn one-off costs. We also model c50% of the rate benefit implied by the Fed’s dot plot given STAN is now more US rate sensitive than HSBC (LDRs), taking EPS +8% and PT to 1250p. With 16% upside and valuation 0.9x P/TNAV at discount, we upgrade to OW.
 Implications of the rising levy: Following last week’s increase in the UK bank levy, we estimate that StanChart is the most impacted UK bank with the levy reducing EPS by 13% in 2017E. Although the group may be able to reduce this given the change in the growth strategy, we believe that a strong case for re-domicile is now on the table. The group has previously indicated that the costs of a re-domicile would offset the earnings benefit; our analysis implies that RoTE would rise by at-least 1.3% assuming a $2.5bn one-off charge in 2017 leading to over 20% upside.
 Capital to improve organically with RWA reduction helping: In our view, the CT1 target of 11-12% fully phased from 2015 is inline with local Singapore and HK banks with flexibility to improve further organically with management focus on RWA reduction and short tenors. Although there is downside risk from provisions to 2015 earnings, we also note that the group outlined a possible $50bn of RWA reduction in the PRA stress test showing the benefits of a short duration balance sheet. We do see risk around dividend payout and possibility of scrip payment instead of cash or a cut.
 Rate sensitivity could add 34% from 2015E EPS base, materially more than HSBC: With its LDR now at 70%, below HSBC’s 73%, our detailed rate sensitivity analysis shows StanChart is more geared to rising US rates.
We estimate a $1.4bn positive benefit to NII for a +200bp rise in US rates (+2.6% for RoTE), of which we assume 50% in our numbers."

Barclays note today:
"Reported PBT of $2,098m is 28% below consensus with underlying PBT of $1,824m 37% light. The miss is due to a combination of significantly worse provisions and weaker net interest income. This is said to be a continuation of previous trends, driven by Chin, India and commodities, with provisions up 70% YoY and 15% higher HoH and the NPL ratio deteriorating 30bp HoH to 3.1%. However, the capital position has been materially strengthened with a fully loaded CET1 ratio of 11.5% vs 10.7% at FY15. The dividend of 14.4c is 50% below our expectation. So the balance sheet is in much better shape but with a weak P&L.
New CEO Bill Winters: Acknowledges that there are many more challenges ahead including an acknowledgement of structural change in the industry. He sees them as fixable and targets an RoE of over 10% and is focused on 5 areas: on risk and returns, where have or can build competitive advantage, upgrade or exit low returning client relationships faster, become commercial in leveraging lending relationships into Financial Markets products, changing the organisational structure already underway.
Credit quality review ongoing: The new CEO has begun but not completed a review of the balance sheet. Concentrations in the corporate segment are being reduced and retail unsecured is also being scaled back. The CEO generally sees the credit culture as sound but sees scope for tightening up both credit and pricing decisions and setting a new risk appetite and policies.
No decision taken on whether more capital is required: Despite getting well into the previously targeted range, capital targets remain under review, taking into account capital generation and the BoE stress test currently underway (focused on EM). Capital levels will be set with the intention of staying “absolutely and relatively strong through economic cycles” while also absorbing conduct costs – will raise capital if needed for the long term benefit of the Group, wont if not.
CET1 ratio up 80bp HoH to 11.5%: Well within the previously targeted 11-12% full year range, driven by RWA reduction. RWAs fell $15 billion driven by loan provisioning asset reductions, loan sales and almost $4 billion in RWA efficiencies, this is the first part of the $25 to $30 billion of savings which outlined in March.
Bottom line = likely consensus downgrades of at least 25%. We continue to see balance sheet shrinkage as a source of capital generation which will have a knock-on impact on revenues. The credit environment in which STAN operates is already deteriorating (and this is before a Fed hike) and suggests rising impairments. Our 2017 EPS estimates are 25% below the consensus."

Standard Chartered has posted a disappointing third quarter book due to challenging market conditions combined with business divestments and de-risking initiatives. It saw an $832m dip in income for the period, down to $3.68bn, due to a decline in client activity as a result of volatile market conditions and the impact of de-risking actions. That led the company to reports a loss of $139m for the quarter, down from $1.53bn in the previous year. In the year to date, profit is down from $4.8bn last year to $1.68bn.

when is the entitlement date?

no divi further to , fall 465 most likely. BB ps stayed away from high divi.
old saying don't look a gift horse in the mouth.

If I buy the shares today, am I going to entitles to the rights?

This is all over the place today. The bots seem to be having a disagreement of what the stock is worth

Standard Chartered profit misses forecasts.

LONDON-- Standard Chartered PLC on Tuesday said its financial performance is "not yet acceptable," as it posted a $458 million pretax profit that fell short of analyst expectations.

Revenue for the Asia-focused bank was $3.47 billion in the three months, down from $3.68 billion in the third quarter of 2015, while bad loans fell to $596 million, from $1.23 billion in the same period last year.

A year ago, Standard Chartered posted a $139 million pretax loss for the third quarter and stepped up a program to shrink its balance sheet and pull back from riskier business. The profit-and-loss figures don't include restructuring charges and adjustments for the value of the bank's debt.

Analysts had expected adjusted pretax profit of $601 million for the quarter. The bank didn't release net profit figures but after adjustments the pretax profit was $153 million for the quarter, from $430 million last year, reflecting fluctuations in the value of Standard Chartered bonds.