London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4% at 7,354.30 in afternoon trade on Friday.
AstraZeneca fell after its quarterly profit missed expectations but the company said it would start making a profit from its Covid vaccine from the fourth quarter onwards.
IG market analyst Joshua Mahony said: “AstraZeneca has seen little enthusiasm for their plan to shift into a strategy of ‘modest profitability’ for their vaccine product, with the company hoping to strike new deals at a more advantageous price.
“Coming off the back of a nine-month period that brought $2.2 billion of vaccine sales, shareholders are clearly looking for the firm to boost the earnings outlook after EPS fell short of expectations.”
Software group Aveva was also on the back foot after a downgrade to ‘hold’ from ‘buy’ at Jefferies.
On the upside, Burberry was the standout gainer, having fallen sharply a day earlier after the release of its interim results.
FTSE 100 – Risers
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,932.00p 3.79%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 1,814.00p 2.95%
ITV (ITV) 126.00p 2.07%
Smiths Group (SMIN) 1,484.00p 1.96%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 172.45p 1.86%
Rightmove (RMV) 722.00p 1.80%
Imperial Brands (IMB) 1,568.50p 1.52%
3i Group (III) 1,449.00p 1.40%
Bunzl (BNZL) 2,801.00p 1.30%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,624.00p 1.29%
FTSE 100 – Fallers
AstraZeneca (AZN) 8,893.00p -5.83%
Darktrace (DARK) 589.50p -3.20%
Entain (ENT) 1,975.00p -2.47%
Fresnillo (FRES) 965.00p -1.99%
Whitbread (WTB) 3,212.00p -1.95%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,546.50p -1.90%
Evraz (EVR) 622.40p -1.77%
B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 597.60p -1.68%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 166.56p -1.54%
Aveva Group (AVV) 3,334.00p -1.51%
