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FTSE preview: Shares fall; Lloyds in profit

By Reuters
Updated: 02:59 EDT, 4 August 2010

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The FTSE 100 is expected to fall tracking falls on Wall Street, with doubts about the recovery outweighing a return to profit for Lloyds Banking Group.

Dealers monitor their screens on the trading floor of IG Index in London

Market watcher: Shares are seen falling today.

An index of US pending home sales slid to a record low in June, while consumer spending and personal incomes were flat, providing mounting evidence of a slowdown in economic growth, and factory orders fell steeply for the month.

Adding to the negative tone, Proctor & Gamble dropped over 3%, the top drag on the Dow industrials after the consumer goods maker reported fourth-quarter earnings that missed expectations.

British employment growth slowed to its weakest rate in nine months in July, with the healthcare sector particularly hard hit as public spending cuts began to bite, the KPMG/Recruitment and Employment Confederation survey showed on Wednesday.

Investors will look for more clues on the domestic economy with the release of the CIPS/Markit services PMI data for July.

US data later in the session includes ADP employment data and non-manufacturing ISM figures.

British shop price inflation held steady in July as upward pressure from the cost of fresh food was offset by falls in furniture, clothing and electrical goods prices, a survey from the British Retail Consortium showed on Wednesday.

Britain's top 100 companies made a record £17.5bn in pension contributions last year, some paying more into their schemes than to shareholders to tackle deficits, consultant Lane Clark & Peacock said.

FTSE 100 firms increased contributions to defined benefit (DB) schemes by 50% to help plug shortfalls due to the market turmoil that hit pension assets, LCP said in a study published on Wednesday.

Ex-dividend factors will take 13.08 points off the index with AstraZeneca, BG Group, Reckitt Benckiser, Royal Dutch Shell and SABMiller all losing their payout attractions.

Standard Chartered beat expectations with record half-year profit of $3.12bn as bad debts more than halved and its key Asian markets fared better than those in the West.

Lloyds Banking Group releases its first half results and is expected to return to profit.

Lenders to Connaught, the cash-strapped social housing provider, have started selling their loans to the company, according to the Financial Times.

BP pumped heavy drilling mud into its blown-out Gulf of Mexico well on Tuesday in a "static kill" operation it hopes will help permanently plug the cause of the world's worst accidental marine oil spill.

There will be results today from British Land Company, Shire, Legal & General, Antofagasta, Eurasian Natural Resources, British Airways, Next, Cookson Group, WS Atkins, Carpetright, Marston's and Premier Foods.

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