HSBC Holdings Share News (HSBA)

LONDON (Alliance News) - UK shares have opened higher Tuesday, despite the big UK-listed banks remaining under selling pressure.

Standard Chartered and Lloyds Banking Group lead FTSE 100 decliners after providing pre-market updates. Standard Chartered, down 6.0%, reported a 16% drop in third-quarter pretax profit, citing higher losses on loans gone bad and increased expenses. Lloyds, down 1.4%, said it swung to a third-quarter pretax profit but made a new GBP900 million charge to cover the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal.

Here is what you need to know at the UK market open:
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MARKETS
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FTSE 100: up 0.5% at 6,393.75
FTSE 250: up 0.3% at 15,084.52
AIM ALL-SHARE: up 0.1% at 707.28
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Hang Seng: closed up 1.6% at 23,520.36
Nikkei 225: closed down 0.4% at 15,329.91
DJIA: closed up 0.1% at 16,817.94
S&P 500: closed down 0.2% at 1,961.63
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GBP-USD: up at USD1.6121
EUR-USD: down at USD1.2677

GOLD: up at USD1,229.89 per ounce
OIL (Brent): up at USD85.74 a barrel

(changes since end of previous GMT day)
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ECONOMICS AND GENERAL
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Tuesday's Key Economic Events still to come
(all times in GMT)

09:00 Italy Business Confidence
12:30 US Durable Goods Orders
12:55 US Redbook index
13:00 US S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices (YoY)
14:00 US Consumer Confidence
14:00 US Richmond Fed Manufacturing Index
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France and Italy moved Monday to calm EU concerns over their 2015 budget plans, saying that they would tighten their financial belts further. The EU is currently assessing draft budgets submitted by eurozone countries, under a system meant to spot financial trouble early on. Both Paris and Rome have been warned that their plans would prove problematic under the EU's strict budget discipline rules. Italian Finance Minister Pier Carlo Padoan said on Monday that his government had decided to "adopt additional measures for 2015 in order to strengthen the fiscal effort already envisaged in Italy's draft budgetary plan." France's finance minister, Michel Sapin, wrote to the commission that Paris plans to cut its structural deficit by a total of at least 0.5 percentage point, thanks to lower-than-expected interest rates and new measures against tax fraud. The savings would amount to around EUR3.6 billion, French media reported.
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Profits of Chinese industrial firms rebounded in September, a report from the National Bureau of Statistics showed. Industrial profits rebounded by 0.4% year-over-year in September after the 0.6% drop in August.
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Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said quantitative and qualitative easing has been exerting its intended effects and the Japan economy has been on a path that suggests that the 2% inflation will be achieved as expected. "Inflation expectations have been rising on the whole and this development has been influencing wage and price formation," Kuroda said in statement presented before the Committee on Financial Affairs, House of Councillors.
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Retail sales in Japan jumped 2.3% on year in September, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said - worth JPY11.242 trillion. That was sharply higher than forecasts for an increase of 0.8% following the 1.2% gain in August. On a seasonally adjusted monthly basis, retail sales climbed 2.7% - beating forecasts for a gain of 0.9% following the 1.9% jump in August.
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Confidence among Japan's small and medium-sized enterprises decreased unexpectedly in October, survey data released by the Shoko Chukin Bank showed. The small business confidence edged down to 47.4 in October from 47.6 in September. Economists had expected the index to rise to 48.5.
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Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko held a first round of coalition talks Monday after early results showed that pro-Western parties had won the country's parliamentary elections. Poroshenko met with Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of the western city of Lviv, presidential spokesman Svyatoslav Tseholko said. The president's Poroshenko Bloc party and Yatsenyuk's People's Front party both scored around 21%, according to preliminary figures released after 70% of votes were counted.
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US health authorities on Monday released a new set of guidelines for checking people who arrive in the US from West Africa for signs of illness caused by the Ebola virus. The guidelines establish four categories of travellers based on risk, the highest being someone who provided direct care to an Ebola patient and the lowest being someone who had no direct exposure but travelled to one of the African countries where the Ebola outbreak is worst. Mandatory quarantines or other types of isolation are not part of the guidelines unless travelers have symptoms or request quarantine, said Tom Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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Israel on Monday announced it will build more than 1,000 new homes in East Jerusalem - a move met with international criticism. "The government has decided to advance planning for some 1,000 new housing units in Jerusalem," an official in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office confirmed to dpa on condition of anonymity. He said some 400 apartments are to be built in Har Homa and over 600 in Har Shlomo. Both are what Israel calls "neighbourhoods" of Jerusalem because they fall within the Israeli-drawn municipal boundaries.
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BROKER RATING CHANGES
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BARCLAYS CUTS OLD MUTUAL TO 'EQUAL WEIGHT' ('OW') - TARGET 205 (215) PENCE
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COMPANIES - FTSE 100
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Lloyds Banking Group said it swung to a third-quarter pretax profit, as strong underlying growth more than offset a new GBP900 million charge to cover the payment protection insurance mis-selling scandal. In a statement, Lloyds said it made a GBP751 million pretax profit in the three months ended September 30, compared with a GBP440 million pretax loss in the corresponding quarter last year. The bank said it is in ongoing talks with its regulator, the Bank of England's Prudential Regulation Authority, over resuming dividend payments, and the CFO said it hopes to pay a dividend for the current financial year. The group also set out medium-term targets under a strategy update under which it expects to see 9,000 job cuts across its business while focusing on digital and information technology. Lloyds expects a net reduction of about 150 branches.
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Standard Chartered reported a 16% drop in third-quarter pretax profit, citing higher losses on loans gone bad and increased expenses. The Asia-focused bank also expects underlying profit in the second half to be lower than the same period last year, partly due to a higher UK bank levy, regulatory and restructuring costs. Standard Chartered said it made a USD1.53 billion pretax profit in the three months ended September 30, compared with a USD1.83 billion pretax profit in the corresponding quarter last year.
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Britain's biggest banks will take their combined charges for mis-selling payment protection insurance in excess of GBP22 billion as they report third-quarter earnings, Sky News reported Monday. Citing insiders, Sky News reported that the cumulative charge for the five biggest UK lenders is set to be "well over" GBP1 billion. The UK's five biggest lenders are Barclays PLC, HSBC Holdings PLC, Lloyds Banking Group PLC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC and Santander.
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BP reported a drop in third-quarter earnings due to lower oil prices and production, but said it hit its cash flow targets and it is on track to hit its 2014 targets. During the quarter ended September 30, the company reported an underlying pretax replacement-cost profit of USD3.9 billion, compared with USD4.4 billion in the same period in 2013. Operating cash flow for the quarter totalled US9.4 billion compared to USD6.3 billion a year earlier. As a result of hitting cash flow targets, BP announced a quarterly dividend of 10.00 cents per ordinary share, a 5.3% year-on-year increase which is expected to be paid in December, it said in a statement.
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BG Group reported a rise in third quarter pretax earnings, boosted by disposals, but said its exploration and production guidance remains at the low end of its forecast range. Group pretax profit rose to USD1.99 billion in the three months to September 30, from USD1.91 billion a year earlier, as revenue rose to USD4.59 billion, from USD4.43 billion. The company's third-quarter E&P production was 569 thousand barrels of oil equivalent a day, at the lower end of the 590-630 thousand barrels of oil equivalent a day range, reflecting its continuing issues in Egypt and the acceleration into 2014 of production sharing contract effects in Kazakhstan following higher than reference condition oil prices.
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Royal Dutch Shell has made a request to the Obama administration to be given another five years to explore for oil off the coast of Alaska, claiming setbacks and legal delays could push the start of drilling beyond the 2017 expiration of some of its leases, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday. Shell said in a letter to the US Interior Department that "prudent" exploration prior to the expiration of the leases is now "severely challenged", Bloomberg said.
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COMPANIES - FTSE 250
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Synthomer warned it expects lower profit in the full year and said earnings could be lower still if economic developments in Europe continue to deteriorate. "At current run rates and given the current demand environment in Europe, the board now expects full-year profit before tax to be slightly below current consensus" of pretax profit of GBP87.8 million, the company said. "We are cautious about performance in Europe given recent economic developments, and should this impact demand further than currently anticipated in the fourth quarter, then profit before tax is likely to be around the lower end of the current consensus range," currently GBP81.3 million to GBP90.3 million.
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NMC Health said its revenue rose in the third quarter on the back of strong performances from its Healthcare and Distribution arms and said it would reshuffle its executive team, with its chief operating officer departing, its chief financial officer moving to be deputy chief executive, and its deputy chief financial officer making the step up. Group revenue for the United Arab Emirates-focused healthcare company reached USD161.2 million in the third quarter to the end of September, up from USD136.5 million a year earlier. Chief Operating Officer Binay Shetty is stepping down from his role at the end of the year. Prasanth Manghat, currently chief financial officer, will take on the newly-created role of deputy chief executive from January 1 and will be replaced by Suresh Krishnamoorthy, currently the deputy chief financial officer.
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COMPANIES - LONDON MAIN MARKET AND AIM
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Ilika said it has started the process of succession planning for a new chairman after Jack Boyer said he intends to stand down after ten years in the role. The electronic materials company said senior independent director William Wakeham will lead the search for a successor to Boyer. In addition, the company said Keith Jackson has joined its board as a non-executive director. He is currently the chief technology officer at FTSE 100 engineering group Meggitt PLC.
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Matomy Media Group said it has struck a USD17.6 million deal to buy European mobile programmatic advertising platform MobFox. Matomy will pay USD10.1 million in cash and USD7.5 million in new Matomy shares to acquire Mobfox. It said it would issue the shares at 260 pence per share.
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HaloSource said it has raised approximately GBP7 million through a share placing. The clean water and antimicrobial technology company placed 63.6 million shares at 11 pence per share. Shares in the company closed at 11.125 pence on Monday. The funds raised are to be used for working capital and to fund the expansion of the company's drinking water and environmental water businesses.
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Stratex International said it is expecting to finish building the Altintepe gold mine in Turkey before the end of 2014 and will pour the first gold at the site in the first quarter of 2015.
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Utilitywise FY Pretax Profit GBP13.1M Vs GBP7.4M, Up 76%; Total Dividend 4P Vs 2.6P; New FY Entered With Strong Contracted Revenue, Pipeline; Optimistic Of Another Strong Performance In New FY
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COMPANIES - INTERNATIONAL
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Twitter posted a net loss of USD175.5 million in the third quarter, widened from a loss of 64.6 million a year earlier, the social net working service said Monday. Revenue rose by 114% to 316.2 million dollars, according to a company statement. Despite the loss chief executive Dick Costolo said Twitter "had another very strong financial quarter." The number of active monthly users increased by 23% to 284 million, the statement said.
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Swiss banking giant UBS AG, on a reported basis, recorded CHF762 million of net profit attributable to the company's shareholders for the third quarter of 2014 and pre-tax loss of CHF554 million. The result included a net tax benefit of CHF1.3 billion reflecting annual revaluation of deferred tax assets and net charges of CHF1.8 billion on provisions for litigation, regulatory and similar matters, the company said. The group's fully applied Basel III common equity tier 1 ratio improved to 13.7%.
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Nomura Holdings and its consolidated entities reported income before income taxes of JPY125.7 billion for the six months ended September 30, 2014, compared to JPY186.2 billion, a year ago. Net revenue was JPY744.67 billion, down 5.5% from JPY787.71 billion the prior year.
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Swiss drug maker Novartis AG reported that its third-quarter net income attributable to shareholders climbed to USD3.22 billion from last year's USD2.23 billion. Net income, including a gain from the divestment of its blood transfusion diagnostics unit, was USD3.24 billion, a growth of 45% from last year excluding diagnostics.
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French drug maker Sanofi posted lower third-quarter 2014 net income attributable to equity holders of EUR1.19 billion, compared with last year's EUR1.22 billion. Group sales for the quarter reached EUR8.78 billion, up 4.1% on a reported basis, compared with the prior-year figure of EUR8.43 billion. Exchange rate movements had an adverse effect of 1.0 percentage point, mainly reflecting the strength of the euro versus other currencies.
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Tuesday's Scheduled AGMs/EGMs

Indus Gas
JPMorgan Mid Cap Investment Trust
Balfour Beatty
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By Tom Waite; thomaslwaite@alliancenews.com; @thomaslwaite

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