Banks in the black as Lloyds suffers £4bn loss

Lloyds Banking Group is supporting the index on the back of its first half results. The part-state-owned bank is up 5.19% at 88.64p despite having reported a six-month loss of $4bn, £1bn lower than many analysts had forecast. Lloyds’ bad debts totalled £13.4bn, 80% of which stem from investments made by HBOS prior to the merger. Chief executive Eric Daniels blamed the results on the high concentration of property assets within the HBOS portfolio, which have suffered from the decline in property prices, but said he expected write-offs to have peaked in the first six months of the ye...