Royal Bank of Scotland shares slipped today as its chief executive warned it faces a period of “almost exclusively bad news”, even though the bank, which this week pushed through its record rights offering, stuck to previous targets concerning credit writedowns this year.

RBS said in a pre-close trading update published today ahead of its first-half results on August 8 that it expects “group and divisional trends to continue to track the guidance provided in the interim management statement of April 22”.