Blue chip stocks in London were down, dragged lower by worse-than-expected results from Barclays and Royal Dutch Shell.
The lender said its adjusted pre-tax profits in the three months to the end of September fell by around 10% to £1.4 billion, after booking a £290 million foreign exchange charge.
The FTSE 100 Index fell 70.9 points to 6366.5, giving back almost all the gains the market made in the previous session.
France’s Cac 40 was down 0.9% and Germany’s DAX was 0.6% lower.
Markets were also lower after the Federal Reserve decided to keep US interest rates unchanged at record lows of 0% to 0.25%, but indicated they might raise it at their December meeting if the US economy keeps improving. Cheap cash tends to favour investors.
The pound was slightly down against the US dollar at just under 1.53, and was lower against the euro at 1.39.
Barclays, which yesterday confirmed the appointment of Jes Staley as its new group chief executive officer, was down 5% – or 13.5p to 240p.
Investor concerns over bank profitability weighed on other stocks, with Lloyds Banking Group down 0.7p to 73.3p and Royal Bank of Scotland 7p lower at 319.4p.
Shell was 40.5p lower to 1703p after it revealed that it had taken an 8.6 billion US dollars (£5.65bn) hit to cover the cost of halting projects such as Alaskan drilling and the Carmon Creek oil sands project in Canada.
It added that its third-quarter current cost of supplies earnings, the company’s definition of net income, came in at 1.8 billion US dollars (£1.2bn), below analysts’ expectations of 2.7 billion US dollars (£1.8bn) and 70% lower than a year ago.
Telecoms operator BT was up 1.8p to 470.5p, after it signed up a record 106,000 TV customers in its second quarter of the year, boosted by the start of the telecoms operator’s Champions League football coverage.
It said the extra viewers helped lift the telecoms giant’s adjusted pre-tax profits in the six months to the end of September by 5% to £1.4 billion compared to a year ago.
Insurer Aviva lifted 4.5p to 483.9p, after it said the value of its new business jumped by a quarter in the first nine months of the year following its acquisition of rival Friends Life.
The insurance giant revealed new business had lifted by 25% to £823 million over the period compared to a year ago, notching up its 11th straight quarter of growth.
Recommended for you
