London, February 16, 2026, 09:01 GMT — Regular session
- Standard Chartered shares picked up roughly 1.7% at the start of London trading.
- European financial stocks caught a broad bid, pulling higher after some turbulent trading in recent sessions.
- Eyes are now on next week’s full-year results—investors hoping for some clarity.
Shares in Standard Chartered picked up 1.7% to hit 1,747 pence as of 0901 GMT, clawing back some losses after a choppy period for the lender’s stock.
This shift comes just ahead of the Asia-focused bank’s full-year earnings—an event that usually brings updates on key-market momentum and capital returns. On Monday, with no major headlines from the company itself, traders mostly played the sector tape and calibrated positions ahead of the report.
Bank and insurance shares moved to the front in Europe, clawing back ground as buyers returned to financials after the sector tumbled last week over AI-driven profit concerns. “We still won’t have enough evidence to identify the structural winners and losers with confidence,” Deutsche Bank’s Jim Reid and his analyst team cautioned, pointing to the risk of big sentiment swings. Reuters
Standard Chartered will post its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results on Tuesday, Feb. 24, according to the bank’s investor calendar. Management is set to give a presentation later that morning.
The stock’s been in focus too, after the bank announced earlier this month that finance chief Diego De Giorgi had departed, with deputy CFO Peter Burrill stepping in as interim.
Investors are set to pore over the figures, watching for evidence that the core businesses in Asia and the Middle East remain resilient. Any fresh information on cost lines and profitability goals will get attention, too. On top of that, the market will be alert for updates on the timing of a permanent CFO appointment.
At this stage, even minor tweaks to guidance are hitting the stock, which sits nowhere near its early-February high—though it’s still trading well above where it was a year back, market data show.
One major worry: earnings or outlook might not line up with what the market wants to see on margins or credit costs. Then there’s the leadership handoff—investors could stay on the sidelines until the report drops. This quarter, bank stocks haven’t waited around; they’ve moved sharply on headlines.
Feb. 24 stands out as the next big date. That’s when the board plans to review full-year results and decide on a final dividend, according to a regulatory filing.
