FTSE 100 movers: Rolls-Royce takes off; Lloyd's job cuts depress
Shares in Rolls-Royce soared as underlying pre-tax profits at Rolls-Royce fell 76% to £104m in the first half as underlying revenues came in at a better-than-expected £6.14bn, a decline of 5%.
Rolls said pre-tax losses came in at £2.15bn from a £310m profit last year largely as a result of a revaluation of its US dollar hedge book after sterling's recent collapse in the wake of the UK's decision to leave the European Union.
Subscription broadcaster Sky also made the top 10 risers after reporting a 7% increase in revenue to £11.965bn, with adjusted operating profit up 12% to £1.558bn.
Sky said adjusted earnings per share rose 13% during the period to 63.1p, and declared its 12th consecutive year of dividend growth to 33.5p.
Global professional information and analytics company RELX Group was up on the back of continued underlying growth in revenue, operating profit and earnings in the first half of of the year. The firm saw underlying revenue growth of 4% to £3,257m or €4,169m.
A jump in the gold price helped miners, with Anglo American also reporting that it had narrowed its first-half pre-tax loss to $364m, from $1.92bn, as the mining titan booked a commodity price-driven impairment of $1.2bn linked to its Moranbah and Grosvenor coal assets. Fresnillo and Randgold also rose.
SSE led the fallers as the stock went ex-dividend.
Lloyds Banking Group fell as it said it was axing 3,000 jobs and dumping 200 branches to cut costs. The state-owned financial generated a bigger pre-tax profit in the first half of the year that was expected.
Reaffirming its full year guidance for net interest margin and cost:income ratio, the bank posted an underlying pretax profit £4.2bn in the half year to end-June, down 5% on last year's or 2% if excluding TSB but ahead of consensus estimates of £4.06bn.
Smith & Nephew shares fell after the company said interim profits were hit by currency headwinds. Pre-tax profits for the period fell to $453m from $481m while trading profits were lower at $483m compared with $512m a year ago.
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 6,743.68 -0.10%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 843.00p 15.16%
Anglo American (AAL) 839.00p 4.98%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,931.00p 4.55%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 9,025.00p 4.27%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,852.00p 3.45%
Relx plc (REL) 1,453.00p 3.34%
Sky (SKY) 917.00p 3.32%
BT Group (BT.A) 415.40p 3.31%
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 966.00p 3.09%
Diageo (DGE) 2,203.50p 3.06%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
SSE (SSE) 1,552.00p -4.55%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,245.00p -4.23%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 53.65p -3.77%
Schroders (SDR) 2,543.00p -3.67%
Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 2,028.00p -3.66%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 608.60p -3.41%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,976.00p -3.30%
Capita (CPI) 944.00p -3.18%
Informa (INF) 735.00p -2.13%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,440.00p -1.77%