The Lloyds share price (LON:LLOY) was fully involved in the rebound rally from the low point in March, having rallied from 27.9p to 34.6p, a gain of over 20%. The rally in Lloyds and other UK banks was sparked by optimism surrounding the reopening of economies and a consistent drop in the number of new coronavirus cases, which brought the pandemic under control. However, Lloyds shares have since resumed their decline as investors digest the economic impact of coronavirus in the first quarter and what it could mean for second quarter activity. There was an initial consensus the global economy would experience a V-shaped recovery, but with UK GDP falling 5.8% in April alone, a sharp rebound looks unlikely in the short term. There is also the risk of a second wave of coronavirus that could lead to a return to strict lockdown measures. “Talk of a V-shaped recovery feels like wishful thinking, and we expect prolonged periods of depressed growth across the majority of the economy. A flatter, U-shaped recovery is more likely,” said Stefan Koopman an economist at Rabobank. The acceptance of a longer, flatter, economic recovery can be attributed as reason for the recent drop in stocks that has seen the FTSE 100 drop from intraday highs around 6,200 to 5,760.

Lloyds share price

The drop in the wider FTSE 100 benchmark saw Lloyds shares dragged down with it as they headed back down to 28p, and the March low. The prospect of a slow recovery in the economy will ultimately mean Lloyds profitability will take longer to return to pre-crisis levels. The approval of mortgages is likely to be severely impaired through 2020 and generally reduced consumer confidence will impact Lloyds banking activity. However, this is not to say that the lower levels of activity will last forever, and investors could see the current drop in Lloyds shares as an opportunity to pick some up, if they missed the initial sell off below 30p. The unprecedented support from the UK government has averted a complete collaspse in the economy and ensured many in the UK have the income to support activity. In addition, many households would have saved during the lockdown and created pent up demand which is likely to be unleashed on the economy as restrictions lift further. This may come in the form of increased consumer spending, business activity and housing transactions, all of which benefit Lloyds. Whether this take place in the third quarter of 2020 or first quarter of 2021, economic activity will return and provide upside pressure for Lloyds share price. There is also the prospect for a return to dividends in 2021 which will be highly anticipated by the market.

Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL) shares jump on Thursday as the wealth management platform said they had experienced recorded dealing figures through the coronavirus crisis. Hargreaves Lansdown announced clients numbers grew by 94,000 to 1,386,000 active clients. The increase in new clients brought in £4 billion in net new business which was up from £2.9 billion in the same period a year ago. The increase in clients activity at Hargreaves Lansdown echoed performance from other online trading and investment platforms such as IG Group, who also recorded record activity through the spread of the pandemic. Hargreaves Lansdown share were up over 8% in early trade on Thursday before falling back and are still down over 11% in 2020. “During this exceptionally volatile and challenging period, Hargreaves Lansdown has performed strongly, adding 94,000 net new clients and £4.0 billion of net new business,” said Chris Hill, Chief Executive Officer of Hargreaves Lansdown. He continued to highlight the investment Hargreaves had made into the business and the impact it was now having. “The investment that we have deliberately undertaken over the past three years into our service, its scalability, our marketing and our technology has enabled us to support and protect the interests of our clients throughout the COVID-19 crisis.” “In these challenging times, it is critical we can support people in managing their investments and savings according to their desired outcomes.” However, Mr Hill cautioned on the outlook for markets as the prospect much touted V-shaped recovery in economies and stock markets fades. “There remains much uncertainty in the coming months and hence, like many businesses, we cannot predict levels of new business or client activity. However, we are confident that the strategy we have invested in, with our focus on the needs of UK investors and savers and delivering the highest level of client service, means that we are well positioned to deliver continued attractive long-term growth.”

Greatland Gold (LON:GGP) have been one of the true success stories of 2020 with share rising over 370% since the beginning of the year. The main factor behind the meteoric rise is the success of the Havieron drilling programme in Western Australia which has yielded a string of successful results. Greatland Gold have a farm-in agreement with Newcrest and there are plans for further drilling over the next 12 months and investors are awaiting the next set of results from the project which may provide the catalyst for upside in the share price. With shares falling back from highs of 9.6p and building a base around 7p-7.5p , it appears profit taking is diminishing and the market has agreed on a fair value as it awaits further updates. With the company not yet receiving revenue, projects are being funded by existing cash reserves which have been boosted since 31st December when the company recorded £4m in cash. This appears ample cash given operating loss was just £2.6m in 2019. Subsequent to the last set of drill results, the CEO of Greatland Gold commented: “We are delighted by the seventh consecutive set of excellent results from Newcrest’s drilling campaign, further demonstrating the robustness and continuity of high-grade mineralisation at Havieron, which remains open to the north west and at depth,” said Gervaise Heddle, Chief Executive Officer of Greatland Gold. “These results represent another important step towards our near-term objective of a maiden resource at Havieron, and further reinforce the potential to accelerate the timetable for commercial production.” Heddle continued to outline the steps taken by Newcrest to ensure the safety of staff but pointed to a possible commencement of testing again in the short term. “We are pleased by the extensive steps taken by Newcrest to mitigate the risks of the COVID-19 pandemic at site, whilst maintaining their ongoing commitment to Havieron with nine drill rigs currently operational. We expect step out drilling along strike and at depth to commence in the near term, which will begin to provide us with a clearer picture of the potential to further extend the zone of high-grade mineralisation at Havieron.”

The FTSE 100 sank on Wednesday, reversing much of the gains enjoyed in a two-day rally driven by the reopening of global economies. The FTSE 100 traded as low as 5,904 in the first hour of trade on Wednesday as the market digested the latest economic data from the UK and Europe. The UK economy shrank 2% in the first quarter but a relatively buoyant manufacturing sector before the lockdown meant the UK avoided a complete collapse. “That actually means the UK avoided the kind of Q1 contraction seen by its peers – France fell 5.8%, Italy 4.7% and Spain 5.2%. However, and it is a sledgehammer of a however, that is almost purely down to when lockdown was implemented rather than any actual outperformance, meaning even more pain is going to be felt in Q2,” said Connor Campbell, analyst at Spreadex. “Nevertheless, those numbers were better than expected, allowing the FTSE to keep its losses at the lower end of what was seen in the Eurozone. That still meant the UK index fell 1.3%, dragging it back below the 6000 mark it hit following Rishi Sunak’s furlough scheme extension on Tuesday.” UK bond yields turned negative inline with European bonds as the market priced in the possibility of negative interest rates. Negative rates aren’t something that have been discussed publicly by the Bank of England, but could become a reality if the economic downturn persists. With interest rates at 0.1% the BoE has little left in terms of option to fight a persistently low inflation and may be forced to follow the European Central Bank in taking rates negative. Taylor Wimpey was one of the few FTSE 100 risers after the housebuilder announced it would reopen sales operation next week. Taylor Wimpey was one of the first listed house builders to outline plans for reopening sites and their sales operations will now allow for revenue generation once again. Berkeley Group and Barratt Developments were also among the early risers.

Land Securities (LON:LAND) shares fell on Tuesday after the company reported increased losses and scrapped the final dividend. Full year losses before tax increased to £837m, up from a loss of £123m in 2019. The impact if COVID-19 meant the Real Estate Investment Trust had to set aside provisions for disruption to rental income in the coming year. Land Securities also had to record an 8.8% drop in the valuation of their property portfolio, amounting to £1,178m. The company said it had experience an increase level of rent deferrals and expected rent payments to decline over the coming year. The disappointing outlook drove the board to scrap the final dividend in an effort to conserve cash through the crisis. A lot of the attractiveness of Land Securities and other REITs was the dividend paid from rental income earned from the underlying property portfolio. Land Securities operates a diverse UK-focused property portfolio comprising of retail, leisure and workspace. “I join Landsec at an extraordinary time,” said Mark Allan, Chief Executive of Land Securities. “The effects of Covid-19 are accelerating ongoing structural trends across the real estate sector, while its longer-term societal and economic consequences are yet to be determined. Landsec’s strong balance sheet and resilient operational performance have enabled us to respond to immediate challenges posed by Covid-19 with speed and decisiveness. “Our £80m rent relief fund has offered targeted support to occupiers, alongside broader options of rent deferrals and monthly payments, and our £500,000 of community grants is providing financial assistance to our charity partners.” “I am confident Landsec is approaching the future from a position of strength. We are prepared to be bold in our thinking as we navigate both the challenges and opportunities arising in the long term from changing market trends and will not lose sight of our wider sustainability objectives. We will continue to lead the sector on major issues such as climate change and remain committed to acting as a force for good in the communities in which we operate.”  

Bidstack (LON:BIDS) has announced a collaboration with Codemasters to deliver native advertising for the game Dirt 5. Bidstack are a digital advertising specialist that focus on native advertising in computer games and the Codemaster agreement builds on a number of other deals including an agreement with Epic Games, the company behind the hit game Fortnite. Today’s announcement relates to advertising to be placed in the Dirt 5 game for the next generations of both the Xbox and Playstation consoles. The game is set to be released in October 2020. “It’s great to be working with Codemasters, using our technology to deliver native in-game advertising for DIRT 5, which is the first racing game to be confirmed for the all-new Xbox Series X,” said James Draper, CEO of Bidstack. “The launch of the Xbox Series X and PlayStation®5 later this year will bring a new level of gaming to gamers throughout the world. Where our technology is deployed within the games, brands and the global advertising agencies we are dealing with will be able to engage with gamers in a completely natural way.” In addition to signed deals with games producers, Bidstack have inked a deal with advertising agency Dentsu Aegis. Establishing the infrastructure through deals such as the one with Codemaster’s provides Bidstack with the digital real estate to place adverts, but essential to the success of their model is securing agency agreements to ensure channels to brands. Part of the distribution of adverts through Bidstack’s technology involves a programmatic platform that allows clients to manage their inventory through a self-serve backend similar to interfaces offered by giants such as Google and Facebook. However, despite the revolutionary approach employed by Bidstack the company only posted revenue of £140,000 in 2019. The development costs incurred meant Bidstack’s adjusted loss before tax of £5.3m. The company had a cash balance of £3.1m as of 31st December.

The FTSE 100 rose in early trade on Monday as major global moved to ease lockdown measures to help restart economies. The FTSE 100 traded as much as 0.9% higher at 5,994 in the first hour of trade on Monday, before selling off to turn negative on the day. London’s leading index was closed on Friday and missed a strong session in the US following the release of the monthly US jobs report. US Non-Farm payrolls recorded a drop of 20.5 million jobs in the United States in April, which was marginally better than the expected 21.5 million. The better than expected figure sparked a rally in global equities and followed through to a strong session on Monday in Europe. A stronger jobs report. although abysmal, analysts looked through the numbers to a potential recovery. “Going in we knew we were going to see staggering job losses. But what we are looking at are temporary job losses, which gives us hope that those jobs could come back. But overall it’s a bleak report,” said Charlie Ripley, Senior Market Strategist at Allianz. The post Non-farm payrolls rally built on steady gains last week that materialised as major global economies began to reopen their economies. The UK was the latest country to lay down plans for a gradual easing of lockdown measures as Boris Johnson changed his message to ‘stay alert’ in a speech on Sunday. In a speech highly criticised for its lack of clarity, Johnson said some workers could begin to return to work and people were allowed to take unlimited exercise. The Prime Minister also announced a 14-day quarantine for people flying into the UK. This hit the UK’s listed airlines with easyJet over 7% weaker and IAG shedding 2.5%. Ryanair was down 1.5%. Johnson Matthey was the FTSE 100 risers as the lockdown easings increased the prospect of higher levels of car manufacturing. Despite the potential for increased economic activity, there are warnings the recovery may not be as sharp as people had previously thought. “The market’s confidence in positive news on coronavirus is looking overly optimistic and there is a sizeable risk that the opening up of the economy will be much slower than many people think. But we do expect the trough to be reached in the second quarter of the year, followed by significant improvement in corporate earnings in the second half,” said Ewout van Schaick, Head of Multi Asset at NN Investment Partners.