London’s FTSE 100 was down 0.4% at 7,242.88 in afternoon trade on Wednesday.
Darktrace was under the cosh after private equity firm Vitruvian Partners sold 11m shares in the cybersecurity group in a placing. The shares were sold at 580p each, raising gross proceeds of around £63.8m.
Next was in the red as the retailer reported better-than-expected full-price sales in the last five weeks, but warned that momentum would slow in the final quarter due to diminishing pent-up demand from Covid lockdowns and supply-chain constraints.
On the upside, Royal Mail was the top riser after an upgrade to ‘neutral’ from ‘sell’ by UBS.
British Airways and Iberia owner IAG flew higher after Lufthansa said it had returned to profit for the first time since the pandemic.
Miners Antofagasta, Anglo American and Glencore were all up as copper and iron ore prices rose. Anglo American also benefited from an upgrade to ‘buy’ from ‘hold’ at Liberum.
Advertising giant WPP gained after an upgrade to ‘market perform’ at Bernstein.
FTSE 100 – Risers
Royal Mail (RMG) 444.50p 2.73%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 167.74p 2.68%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,392.50p 2.39%
Pearson (PSON) 604.00p 2.37%
Anglo American (AAL) 2,769.00p 1.80%
Fresnillo (FRES) 867.20p 1.69%
Schroders (SDR) 3,731.00p 1.52%
CRH (CDI) (CRH) 3,665.00p 1.52%
WPP (WPP) 1,064.50p 1.43%
Glencore (GLEN) 358.15p 1.10%
FTSE 100 – Fallers
Darktrace (DARK) 597.00p -5.61%
Coca-Cola HBC AG (CDI) (CCH) 2,507.00p -3.76%
Next (NXT) 8,046.00p -3.20%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 284.50p -3.00%
BP (BP.) 335.15p -2.84%
B&M European Value Retail S.A. (DI) (BME) 608.20p -2.28%
Royal Dutch Shell ‘A’ (RDSA) 1,627.00p -2.08%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 1,083.00p -1.95%
Royal Dutch Shell ‘B’ (RDSB) 1,627.00p -1.89%
Informa (INF) 524.80p -1.87%
