FTSE 100 movers: Prudential, banks tumble in sea of red

It was a sea of red in London’s equity markets on Wednesday, with the FTSE 100 down 3% at 7,408.20 in afternoon trade, as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s Spring Budget was upstaged by a rout in bank shares.

Prudential tumbled even as it reported a better-than-expected rise in annual profit on the back of new insurance sales and said China’s relaxation of Covid restrictions had also provided a boost.

The Asia-focused company saw adjusted operating profit rise 8% in 2022 to $3.38bn, beating a forecast of around $3.34bn from a company-compiled forecast.

Banks Standard Chartered, Barclays, Lloyds, HSBC and NatWest all slid after top Credit Suisse shareholder Saudi National Bank said it would not provide the troubled lender with any further financial assistance.

Credit Suisse tanked 30%. According to reports, asked whether his bank was open to further injections of cash if there was another call for more liquidity, SNB chairman Ammar Al Khudairy said: "The answer is absolutely not, for many reasons outside the simplest reason which is regulatory and statutory."

Earlier this week, Credit Suisse said it had found "material weakness" in its financial statements, just weeks after posting a £6.6bn net loss for 2022 - the largest since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com, said: "Looks like there are increasingly worried investors and counterparties looking at CS as potentially being the next shoe to drop.

"If CS were to run into serious existential trouble, we are in a whole other world of pain. It really is too big to fail. Not sure ECB can go ahead with 50bps tomorrow in this febrile kind of environment."

FTSE 100 - Risers

Fresnillo (FRES) 761.20p 3.34%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 1,064.50p 2.01%
Persimmon (PSN) 1,250.00p 1.67%
BT Group (BT.A) 145.55p 1.39%
SEGRO (SGRO) 791.00p 1.38%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,847.00p 1.24%
Unite Group (UTG) 947.50p 1.17%
Endeavour Mining (EDV) 1,775.00p 1.02%
Haleon (HLN) 318.45p 0.94%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,933.00p 0.68%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Prudential (PRU) 1,057.00p -10.65%
Barclays (BARC) 139.36p -8.35%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 642.40p -7.81%
Shell (SHEL) 2,283.50p -7.53%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 134.44p -7.05%
BP (BP.) 496.40p -6.48%
Glencore (GLEN) 431.65p -6.46%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 146.26p -5.76%
Abrdn (ABDN) 203.80p -5.74%
HSBC Holdings (HSBA) 544.90p -5.56%