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FTSE 100 surrenders earlier gains as Bank of England maintains rates
StockMarketWire.com
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As the Bank of England maintained interest rates at 0.1% the FTSE 100 gave up its earlier gains to trade 0.3% lower at 6,486.57. The fall came as a raft of corporate news got an increasingly negative reception.
Pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca said its diabetes drug Forxiga had been approved in China to reduce the heart failure with reduced ejection fraction in adult patients with and without type-2 diabetes. The news drove its share price up 1.6% to £74.14.
Royal Dutch Shell has reported a 'stronger balance sheet' in its Q4 report, reducing net debt by $4 billion, and exceeding cash preservation targets, but reported a loss of $3.956 billion for the quarter, bringing the total loss for the year to $21.534 billion.
Its share price turned sharply lower through the course of the day, down 2.5% to £12.41.
Unilever, meanwhile, reported a 3.5% underlying sales growth, pushing net profits up 0.8% to €6.1 billion (£5.38 billion). Despite the positive announcement, its share price tumbled 4% to £41.59.
Telecoms company BT said a fall in profit as performance was weighed down ongoing legacy product declines and the impact of Covid-19 on its consumer and its enterprise units. Its share price reversed earlier gains to trade 2.6% lower at 125.3p.
Severn Trent has said it is 'on track' to deliver its full-year results in line with expectations and has increased its guidance for outperformance on customer ODIs to £50 million. The news saw the company's share price fell 2.1% to £23.16.
Elsewhere, foodservice company Compass said organic revenue in its first fiscal quarter fell by more than a third, in line with its expectations, owing to impact of a protracted lockdown measures to contain the virus during the winter months.
Its share price rose 3.8% to £14.01.
Homebuilder Barratt Developments resumed its dividend payments after reporting an uptick in first-half profit as a rise in completion propped up revenue. Its share price was up 1.1% to 680.8p.
At 12:08pm:
(LON:AZN) Astrazeneca PLC share price was 0p at 8633p
(LON:BDEV) Barratt Developments PLC share price was 0p at 619.4p
(LON:CPG) Compass Group PLC share price was 0p at 1373.5p
(LON:RDSB) Royal Dutch Shell PLC share price was 0p at 1115p
(LON:ULVR) Unilever PLC share price was 0p at 4749p
Story provided by StockMarketWire.com
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