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NatWest faces union backlash after asking staff to spend at least two days a week in office

Shares in Lloyds and NatWest fell Friday as investors reacted to reports of a possible increase in the U.K. bank-profit surcharge. The bank surcharge is reportedly expected to rise to 8% from 3% in Finance Minister John Healey's budget later this month.

Lloyds Banking Group PLC (LSE:LLOY) and NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) were among the leading FTSE 100 fallers on Friday as investors reacted to expectations that Chancellor John Healey could raise taxes on banks in the 28 October budget. Lloyds fell 1.9% to 103.85p shortly after 8:30, while NatWest dropped 1.8% to 662.2p, with the sector facing the prospect of a higher surcharge on banking profits.

European Banks remain an ‘overweight' sector for JP Morgan, with NatWest Group PLC (LSE:NWG) and Standard Chartered PLC (LSE:STAN) among its top picks following the sector's recent decline. Its preferred portfolio also includes UBS Group AG (NYSE:UBS), Deutsche Bank AG (NYSE:DB) and ING, with Julius Baer newly added.

This article is part of our monthly series where we highlight five large-cap, relatively safe, dividend-paying companies offering significant discounts to their historical norms. We go over our filtering process to select just five conservative DGI stocks from more than 7,500 companies that are traded on U.S. exchanges, including OTC networks. In addition to the primary list that yields 4.6%, we present two other…