Thursday Papers: Lloyds back in black with £1.6bn profit - other news

Financial Times

* Lloyds Banking Group surged back into profit in the first half of the year, reporting an underlying pre-tax profit of £1.6bn
; it lent £15bn of new mortgages and £24bn of business loans during the period.

* Allied Irish Banks reported a first-half loss of €2.36bn and impairment charge and loan loss provisions of €3.26bn.

* Société Générale said that sharply lower losses from toxic assets had helped it post a threefold rise in quarterly profit; profit in the second quarter had increased to €1.08bn, up from €309m in the same period in 2009.

* The FTSE All-World stock index is up 0.1%; the S&P 500 index closed up 0.6%; the FTSE Eurofirst 300 was flat, while the UK’s FTSE 100 index closed down 0.2%; in Asia, the Nikkei fell 2.1%, with Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 down 0.7%; Hang Seng was up 0.7%, though Shanghai was up barely 0.1%. 

* Tim Geithner, US treasury secretary, on Wednesday suggested there was little room for compromise on the Obama administration’s plans to let tax cuts for wealthy Americans.

*  The dollar has tumbled 9 per cent on a trade-weighted basis in two months, and on Wednesday fell to Y85.29, within a whisker of a 15-year low.

* HSBC’s US unit probed over possible breaches of regulation.

* Swatch's net profits jumped by more than half compared with last year.

The Daily Telegraph

* Drought and scorching heat across the Eurasian Steppes have lifted wheat futures by 50% in a month.

* Ecuador is seeking $3.6bn from rich countries - in return for doing nothing for a decade.