Pharmaceutical shares are in focus as markets pause for breath ahead of the day’s meetings of the Bank of England and, perhaps more importantly, the European Central Bank.
AstraZeneca is down 72.5p or 1.5% at 4547.5p despite the company raising its 2014 guidance following delays to generic competition to its heartburn and ulcer treatment Nexium in the US.
The company, which fended off a bid from US group Pfizer this year, said third quarter sales had climbed 5% to $6.54bn with earnings per share down 13%, much as expected. It forecast revenue to grow in the low single digits compared to previous expectations of flat growth, with a 10% fall in core earnings this year, better than earlier estimates albeit offset by a currency hit of around 5%. Despite this improvement the market seems to have taken this badly. Panmure Gordon’s Savvas Neophytou said:
Strong results... driven by strong Symbicort mainly (5.2% beat), outlook a little disappointing as we had expected the steer towards -6-9% rather than -10%, albeit an upgrade to previous guidance nonetheless.
AstraZeneca holds an investor day on 18 November when more details of its hopes in cancer treatment should be unveiled. This meeting comes shortly before Pfizer is allowed to bid again, if it wishes.
Still in the sector GlaxoSmithKline is down 26.5p at 1409.5p, mostly accounted for by the shares going ex-dividend.
Elsewhere RSA Insurance is leading the fallers, down 12.3p at 471.8p after it said premiums had dropped 9% in the first nine months of the year because of soft markets.
Overall the FTSE 100 is down 19.03 points at 6520.11 after overnight falls in Asia and despite a strong rise on Wall Street after the Republican victory in the mid-term elections.
Morrisons is up 12.5p at 174.9p after better than expected results, with rival J Sainsbury 15.2p better at 262.5p.
