Today it was the turn of Standard Life to relay results from the eye of the global financial storm. Sales on its life and pension business have slumped and mortgage sales have collapsed.
But a reassuring statement from chief executive Sir Sandy Crombie and relief that a key measure of profitability was less bad than feared helped the shares to bounce this morning in another better opening for financial stocks. Well, better so far.
Fourth quarter results from the Edinburgh insurance giant reveal a 25 per cent plunge in life and pension sales in the UK - by far its biggest market - and a 70 per cent slump in mortgage business.
Full year results will be unveiled on March 12 and will show a fall in profits. But the company said this morning its total return on embedded value - a key measure of an insurance company's value - would be ahead of marke
t expectations and broadly similar to the 11.5 per cent reported in 2007.
Relief on this front helped Standard Life shares to rally 11.5p or 5.6 per cent to 218.25p. Other life insurance sales perked up, too.
As with every set of results from a company in the financial sector, figures have to be treated with caution. While underlying profits may have held up better than expected over 2008 as a whole, fourth quarter figures for sales and new business look awful.
And it is these latest three months that may prove the better guide to what's in store for 2009.
Another problem is the continuing volatility in financial markets and in asset prices.
This has a direct bearing, first, on Standard Life's fund valuations and second on customer and investor confidence. A big worry of late is the exposure of insurance companies generally to corporate bonds - particularly those issued by banks. They form a significant part of the core assets that insurers hold in their reserves. If these values start to collapse in the way that bank equity shares have done, then the storm passes from the banks to the insurers - a very nasty prospect.
But the bond market, while highly apprehensive, is not suffering a systemic slump. The announcement from Bank of England governor Mervyn King last week that the Bank would begin a programme of bond buying "within weeks" has also helped sentiment.
Another big worry for Standard Life and other insurers is the extent to which the daily flow of appalling news from the financial markets has permanently damaged customer confidence in investment products - particularly those linked to equity and property markets. We could be seeing saver revulsion from products that have been popular for 30 years and more.
However, on the positive side, life and pension sales should show underlying growth in years to come as households rebuild their savings. Here the recoil from the "buy-to-let" pension mentality to more orthodox pension saving could be a big plus longer term.
The 12 month sales figures show Standard Life bearing up relatively well in the face of the worst global financial crisis in a generation.
Life and pension sales in all markets fell six per cent to £15.6 billion. This was led by a nine per cent drop in UK sales to £12.2 billion.
Sales in Asia rose 17 per cent to £495 million. And Canadian sales gained 9 per cent to £2 billion.
Standard Life Investments has put in a resilient performance with third party funds under management down just five per cent at £45.5 billion against a 33 per cent fall in the FTSE All Share. Total funds under management fell by nine per cent.
However, group sales figures for the three months to end December show big falls - sales of group pensions are down 42 per cent, investment bond sales are down 67 per cent and sales of mutual fund units are down 13 per cent. Total worldwide life and pensions sales are down 23 per cent. And mortgage sales are down 70 per cent over the year as a whole
The company says its return on Embedded Value "is expected to be ahead of current market expectations" (10.1 pert cent) and "broadly similar to the 11.5 per cent reported in 2007."
Said Sir Sandy Crombie this morning: "We face challenging market conditions with a strong capital base, innovative and capital lite platform propositions, excellence in customer service, and strong distribution relationships."
I'm not sure what all that gobbledygook means, but the final sentence of his statement was notably robust for a financial company at this time: "We remain confident in our ability to outperform in the profitable segments in which we operate."
Elsewhere in a stock market that has increasingly come to resemble a Wild West casino, shares in Lloyds Banking Group shares jumped by more than a third today as financials continued their positive start to the week.
Barclays, which triggered a rally for the sector on Monday, was up by another 11% while insurers were sharply higher following the reassuring trading update from Standard Life.
