Standard Chartered Shares Try Recovering from Multiyear Lows

Standard Chartered PLC has been pounded in local London trading. The bank has recovered from its lows this morning but it is impossible not to notice that this was a low back to 2009. The U.S. regulator claims that the bank has done business directly with Iran against U.S. and international sanctions. While Standard Chartered is a U.K. bank, it has a presence here and Iran is now deemed as being “off-limits” when it comes to the dealings of most nations. The key here is “most.”

The risk is that the U.S. could kill its state banking license over allegations that the bank hid some $250 billion in transactions tied to Iran, and the allegation is that it schemed with the government of Iran to hide some 60,000 secret transactions to generate hundreds of millions of dollars in fees over the past 10 years or so.

The New York State Department of Financial Services has gone as far as to say that the dealings have exposed the banking system to corrupt states, drug traffickers and terrorists.

Standard Chartered shares have been about 15-times as active on Tuesday in London trading with a drop of 16.6% to 1,226 but shares were down much more and even under 1,100 to a multiyear low as the risk is that the bank could lose its license to operate in the U.S. The prior 52-week range had been 1,141.50 to 1,664.50 in London. Today’s local London trading is more than 60 million shares versus about 4.7 million on most average days.

Here is the regulatory report from late Monday that cratered the shares.

JON C. OGG