LONDON MARKETS: HSBC Shares Hit In London Trade, Pulling FTSE 100 Lower

By Carla Mozee, MarketWatch

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- U.K. stocks briefly hit an all-time high on Monday, but fell as shares of HSBC Holdings PLC pushed lower after the banking heavyweight released financial results.

The benchmark FTSE 100 was down 1 point to 6,914.92. It had opened higher and briefly surpassed its previous all-time record high of 6,930.20.

But the FTSE 100 then felt the weight of shares of HSBC (HSBC), which dropped 3.2% after the company said its fiscal-year 2014 pretax profit was down 17% to $18.68 billion. Net profit slid to $13.7 billion, from $16.2 billion a year ago, as the bank was hit with higher costs and provisions for misconduct (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hsbc-posts-fall-in-profit-2015-02-23-3485413).

Ahead of the release of the results, the bank in a statement acknowledged that Chief Executive Stuart Gulliver holds a Swiss account (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/hsbc-chief-hit-with-tax-avoidance-scandal-2015-02-23) through a Panamanian company. The statement followed a report from The Guardian newspaper that Gulliver held around GBP5 million ($7.7 million) in a Swiss account, and is domiciled in Hong Kong for tax and legal reasons. The report comes as HSBC has been dealing with allegations it has aided clients in dodging taxes through its Swiss unit.

But other banking stocks on the FTSE 100 held to higher ground, with Royal Bank of Scotland Group PLC up 0.5% and Barclays PLC up 0.9%.

Also pressuring the FTSE 100 were energy and mining shares, with miner Anglo-American PLC lower by 1.7%.

But on the upside were shares of Associated British Foods PLC . They rose 0.6% after the ingredients maker and parent company of retailer Primark said underlying trading remains in line with expectations (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/primark-parent-ab-foods-trading-in-line-with-view-2015-02-23). It also continues to expect a marginal decline in per-share adjusted earnings for the full year.

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