LONDON -- The FTSE 100
But whatever Europe does and wherever the market goes, there are always individual shares from various FTSE indexes doing well. Here are three that are moving upward and are likely to beat the benchmark today.
Barclays
Barclays shares rose 5% to 161 pence this morning after the bank, so beset by problems, released its interim figures. At the same time it apologized for its part in the LIBOR-fixing scandal, the bank revealed a forecast-beating 13% advance to adjusted pretax profits to 4.2 billion pounds. In addition, sovereign exposure to the troubled economies of Europe was reduced by 22% to 5.6 billion pounds, which has to be good.
Among the figures was one interesting nugget: 450 million pounds has been set aside as a "provision for interest rate hedging products redress" after a number of the U.K.'s banks came under investigation by the FSA for mis-selling loan protection to small business customers.
William Hill
Halftime figures from William Hill proved enough to boost the shares by 3% to 300 pence. Revenue at the bookmaking chain for the 26 weeks to June 28 rose 11% to 628 million pounds, with pretax profits up 13% to 143 million pounds.
Online gambling is growing strongly -- revenue is up 30% to 198 million pounds -- and it contributed to the firm's confidence that full-year expectations will be met. The interim dividend was lifted 17% to 3.4 pence per share, and there's a full-year yield of 3.7% expected.
William Hill shares have had a great time of late, up around 30% over the past 12 months.
Chariot
Chariot Oil & Gas
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