Sector movers: Lloyds and Vodafone weigh on their sectors

3rd Feb 2014 16:50

Financial stocks took a hit after the European Central Bank said the largest banks in the euro-area will be required to prove their capital will not drop below 5.5% of their assets in the event of an economic crisis. Shares of Barclays and RBS were weighed down by the news, with the bank sector ending the day as the worst performer on the DJ Stoxx 600 and ending the session lower by 2.56%.More specifically, Lloyds was at the bottom of the pile on the Footsie today after the group revealed its payment protection insurance (PPI) bill had soared by a further £1.8bn to nearly £10bn, and despite predicting its full-year underlying profits would be almost double that predicted by analysts. In reaction to the company´s announcement Jefferies wrote to clients saying thats: "The timing of dividend payouts is consistent with our long-held views regarding repatriation of capital for Lloyd´s. The 'modest level' is disappointing to us as we had factored in a 40% pay-out in 2015, which looks optimistic in light of today's announcement. We would not expect a 50% pay-out until 2018 at best."Meanwhile, Vodafone dragged the Mobile Telecommunications sector down ahead of the release of its results on Thursday, when it is expected to post a 5% decline in revenue for the three months to the end of December. An article in The Sunday Times helped push the stock lower after it called attention to its exposure to the recent mayhem in India, South Africa and Turkey. It said the company was "preparing for a big fall in overseas revenues" due to the difficulties that emerging economies in Asia and Africa are having. "The rising pound is likely to have caused a 5% fall in revenue for the last three months of 2013, but it is set for bigger problems from the withdrawal of money from emerging markets in the last month," the paper added. Eroding sentiment towards all stocks with an exposure to emerging markets was a fairly common denominator to the weakness seen in capital markets on Monday. Top performing sectors so far todayHousehold Goods & Home Construction 11,102.38 +1.77%Electricity 9,013.64 +1.31%Health Care Equipment & Services 5,003.31 +1.30%Gas, Water & Multiutilities 5,577.70 +0.76%Tobacco 33,462.15 +0.56%Bottom performing sectors so far todayPersonal Goods 23,308.78 -2.05%Mobile Telecommunications 5,186.84 -1.52%Banks 4,630.18 -1.40%Industrial Metals & Mining 1,075.99 -1.33%Mining 16,124.14 -1.14%