European shares mainly climb after RBS results

Europe's main stock markets mostly rose on Friday, even as The Royal Bank of Scotland posted massive write-downs and reported its first earnings loss as a public company due to the US subprime crisis.

In late morning trading, the FTSE 100 index of top companies stood at 5,5470.90 points, a loss of 0.12 percent, weighed down by losses to heavyweight mining shares, traders said.

The Royal Bank of Scotland's share price jumped 3.43 percent to 241 pence as its losses came in lower than analysts' expectations, dealers said.

Frankfurt's DAX 30 rose 0.11 percent to 6,550.47 points and the Paris CAC 40 gained 0.57 percent to 4,482.93 nearing the half-way mark.

The Euro Stoxx 50 index of leading eurozone shares was flat at 3,396.85 points.

The European single currency slid to 1.5163 dollars.

Japanese share prices closed up a third of a percent Friday, rebounding from early losses as investors shrugged off an overnight fall on Wall Street, encouraged by a weaker yen which helps exporters.

US stocks had ended a two-day rally with a nosedive on Thursday as higher oil prices and an unexpected rise in jobless claims coupled with fresh financial trouble at Citigroup.

Crude oil futures reversed direction on Friday, sliding by about two dollars a barrel and the market worried about slowing demand for energy, traders said.

RBS on Friday revealed an 11.4-billion-dollar hit from the US subprime crisis, and a resulting half-year loss among the biggest in British banking history.

RBS, the second-biggest British bank, admitted being humbled by exposure to the subprime crisis and reported a first-half net loss of 802 million pounds (1.56 billion dollars, 1.0 billion euros).

That contrasted with a profit after tax of 3.56 billion pounds during the equivalent period in 2007, it added in its results statement.

The results from RBS gave a lift to some of its peers, with HSBC's share price rising by 1.28 percent to 853.25 pence.

Wall Street meanwhile tumbled on Thursday as it was announced that US banking giant Citigroup had agreed to buy back 7.5 billion dollars' worth of tainted securities it marketed to tens of thousands of investors.

The vast buyback forms part of a preliminary settlement Citigroup has reached with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other regulators tied to its marketing of complex debt instruments called auction rate securities.

The settlement, which comes as Citigroup struggles to shake off billions of dollars in losses tied to subprime mortgage investments, could apply fresh stress to the global bank's finances and make it the target of investor lawsuits.