Reuters Business

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top two banks, HSBC and Barclays, signaled bad debts may be past their peak, with HSBC declaring on Tuesday the first drop in U.S. consumer finance impairments for three years. Strong investment banking underpinned profits for both banks, although Barclays shares dipped on concern its investment bank will be unable to sustain its growth and is seeing costs rise. Barclays Plc reported a third-quarter pretax profit of 1.56 billion pounds ($2.6 billion), down from 2.8 billion a year ago, largely due to losses on the value of its own debt and other one-off items. Excluding those, profit in the first ... Read Full Story

LONDON (Reuters) - Barclays Plc <BARC.L> said strong investment banking helped limit a fall in profit in the third quarter and it expects bad debts to peak earlier than it had previously expected. Britain's second-biggest bank said on Tuesday it would restart dividends next month with a payout of 1p per share, as it reported a third-quarter profit of 1.56 billion pounds (, down from 2.8 billion a year ago. For the nine months to the end of September it reported a pretax profit of 4.5 billion pounds, down from 5.6 billion a year ago. Profit excluding gains on acquisitions, debt buybacks and other ... Read Full Story

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top forecasters are growing more confident the U.S. economy has embarked on a sustainable recovery, a survey released on Tuesday showed. The Blue Chip Economic Indicators newsletter for November found forecasters had raised their 2010 projections for gross domestic product for a fourth straight month. However, they still expect the pace of growth to fall short of the typical post-recession bounce. The U.S. economy should expand 2.7 percent next year, the newsletter said. That marked an upward revision from the 2.5 percent pace the survey panel had expected a month ago. For 2009, the consensus of the 52 economists polled was ... Read Full Story

(Reuters) - Investment bank Lazard's <LAZ.N> board may pick more than one person to lead the company following the death of Chief Executive Bruce Wasserstein, the New York Post said. Interim CEO Steve Golub may be made chairman and Ken Jacobs named as CEO, the paper cited a source as saying, adding that Vice Chairman Gary Parr could also get a leadership role. Lazard is not expected to announce Wasserstein's successor for another two weeks as no final decision has been made, the paper cited a source as saying. Lazard could not immediately be reached for comment outside regular U.S. business hours. (Reporting by ... Read Full Story

LONDON (Reuters) - Europe's biggest bank HSBC Holdings <HSBA.L> said its underlying third quarter profits were "significantly ahead" of a year ago and said losses on U.S. consumer loans had shown their first fall in three years. HSBC <0005.HK> said loan impairment allowances for its U.S. consumer finance business declined in the third quarter, representing the first quarterly fall since the start of 2006 and their lowest level for over a year. HSBC said its investment bank arm had maintained its record performance so far this year. HSBC shares were up 1.8 percent at 704.9 pence at 0830 GMT (3:30 a.m. EST). "I believe ... Read Full Story