Thursday, March 21, 2013

3 Shares the FTSE 100 Beat Today

LONDON -- The FTSE 100 (FTSEINDICES: ^FTSE  ) slipped 0.69% to 6,389 points in today's trading session to close below the 6,400 level for the first time in 13 days. The fallout of the Cyprus bailout debacle is still hitting European markets, even though the island's government has backed off from its plan to skim money from its people's bank accounts.

Meanwhile, some individual firms dropped for their own reasons. Here are three that fell today.

Vodafone
Vodafone Group shares dropped 1.2% to 184 pence despite the company's announcement of a deal to extend its international presence in Poland. Under a new agreement with Polish partner Polkomtel, existing Vodafone multinational customers will see Poland added to their current international managed-services contracts.

The deal will add 14 million Polkomtel customers under the Plus brand to Vodafone's coverage, in addition to the firm's existing Partner Market agreements in Austria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, and Ukraine.

Standard Chartered (LSE: STAN  )
Standard Chartered shares fell 0.4% to 1,725 pence after the company's chairman, Sir John Peace, was forced to apologize for comments relating to the bank's breach of U.S. trade sanctions against Iran. Sir John now admits he made comments in a press conference that were "at best inaccurate."

Specifically, a statement that Standard Chartered "had no willful act to avoid sanctions" was "legally and factually incorrect," and Sir John added that the bank accepts responsibility for "past knowing and willful criminal conduct in violating U.S. economic sanctions laws and regulations."

Ted Baker (LSE: TED  )
Shares in Ted Baker dropped 2.5% to 1,320 pence on the release of annual results, even though the figures looked good. Group revenue rose by 18% to 254.5 million pounds, with pre-tax profit up 19% to 28.9 million pounds. Adjusted earnings per share were up 15%, and the firm lifted its dividend by 14% to 26.6 pence per share.

International expansion is going well, with chief executive Ray Kelvin saying, "We have continued to develop our presence internationally with our first stores in Japan, China and Canada and our first concessions in South Korea, Germany and the Netherlands opened during the year."

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