Lloyds Share News (LLOY)

Lloyds was the best performer of the day after reporting that its pre-tax profits in the first quarter came in at 288m pounds compared to a massive loss of 3.47bn pounds in the first three months of last year. Nevertheless, Lloyds said it had seen an increase in the volume of complaints being received following the PPI mis-selling scandal. "If [CEO] Antonio still needs cheering up after the 6% share price rebound of the past eight days then the underlying trends visible in today's numbers could be just the tonic," said analysts at Investec. Sector peers Barclays and RBS were also making moderate gains.Cigarette producer Imperial Tobacco rose after smashing market expectations both in terms of operating profits and earnings per share in its first half as the its biggest brand, Gauloises Blondes, produced significant growth. Meanwhile, Man Group, the hedge fund manager which has seen its share price plummet over the last two months, continued to fall today despite reporting a slight increase in funds under management (FuM) in the first quarter. "After a strong start to the year, markets came back under pressure in March and drove greater dispersion in investment performance across our industry," said Chief Executive Peter Clarke. Peel Hunt downgraded the stock today from buy to hold. Integrated oil major BP also took a hit after underlying replacement cost profit was down in the first quarter, with the downstream business primarily responsible for the fall-off. Morgan Stanley helped knock Severn Trent lower with a downgrade from overweight to equal weight.FTSE 100 - RisersLloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 33.08p +6.68%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,530.00p +2.68%Bunzl (BNZL) 1,045.00p +2.15%Aviva (AV.) 313.40p +1.72%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 24.68p +1.69%Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 837.00p +1.64%Capita (CPI) 673.50p +1.58%Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 287.80p +1.52%BT Group (BT.A) 213.70p +1.38%Wolseley (WOS) 2,375.00p +1.37%FTSE 100 - FallersMan Group (EMG) 98.05p -5.27%BP (BP.) 435.40p -2.16%Kingfisher (KGF) 286.00p -1.55%Severn Trent (SVT) 1,668.00p -1.30%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,365.00p -1.11%Admiral Group (ADM) 1,199.00p -0.99%IMI (IMI) 980.00p -0.96%ARM Holdings (ARM) 519.00p -0.95%BG Group (BG.) 1,437.50p -0.90%Marks & Spencer Group (MKS) 354.00p -0.84%NR