Morning Markets: Lloyds shares soar despite £4bn loss in H1

Lloyds Banking Group is supporting the flagging FTSE on the back of better-than-expected results, having posted a six-month loss of $4bn, £1bn lower than many analysts had forecast.

The part-state-owned bank is up 5.19% at 88.64p, buoying the index which is down 0.31% (14.58 points) at 4656.79. Lloyds’ H1 results revealed its bad debts totalled £13.4bn, 80% of which stem from investments made by HBOS prior to the merger. Chief executive Eric Daniels blamed the results on the high concentration of property assets within the HBOS portfolio, which have suffered from the decline in property prices, but said he expected write-offs to have peaked in the first six months of the year. HSBC and Barclays are up 0.33% at 631.1p and 0.62% at 330.55p respectively having re...