Morning Wrap 20/02/08

The FTSE was down about 60 points this morning at 5,906, whilst the FTSE 250 was down a similar amount at 10,150. The talk was to blame Alliance & Leicester’s results, which have wiped out yetserday’s decent day in ther banking sector.

Ovwer the pond last night the US was down, although not that much. The fact that oil went above US$100 bbl didn’t help feelings over there. The DJI closed down about 11 points at 12,337.22, whilst the S&P500 closed down 1.21 points at 1,348.78 and the Nasdaq closed down 15.5 points at 2,306.2.

In the Far East this morning the Nikkei 225 closed down 447.54 points at 13,310.37, which was over 3% drop, whilst in Hond Kong the Hang Seng closed down 532.59 points at 23,590.58.

Back here in London it was mortgage bank Alliance & Leicester that caused the bad feeling after it announced its figures of £417m profit, down from £585m last year, plus a £185m write-down on its debt-backed investments. The share price fell nearly 80p to 450p on the news. It’s bigger peers were also down, with HBOS off 28p at 631p, RBS down 10p at 357p and 2nd tier player Bradford & Bingley down 5p at 177.

The miners also had a poor start today, with Anglo down about 80p at 3,068, Rio down 120p at 5,730, and Lonmin down 70p at 3,393p.

Kingfisher was 4.5p lower at 132.2 after broker downgrade. JP Morgan gave it the retailer a target of 135p, down from 144p, ahead of a trading statement tomorrow.