Unilever boosts FTSE

Foods group Unilever added weight today during an otherwise lacklustre session for the London market.

The maker of Hellmann’s mayonnaise saw its share price rise 4% – or 55p to 1349p – after improved trading in Europe helped it to post a near 5% improvement in underlying sales for the third quarter of the year.

Concerns over the US economy meant the overall market was less bullish, with the FTSE 100 Index up 1.9 points at 6151.5 at mid-morning.

The Footsie fell by as much as 30 points earlier in the session after a poor performance on Wall Street reflected disappointing factory activity data.

Medical devices group Smith & Nephew was among the fallers, down 7.5p to 501.75p, following confirmation of talks with American firm Biomet relating to a potential tie-up. Analysts expressed concern that a deal may result in the issue of new shares by S&N, or that it could be dragged into a costly bidding war.

Elsewhere in the medical sector, GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca were both higher after JP Morgan raised its price target for Glaxo.

A week after shares in the two companies were dragged lower by disappointing product updates, Glaxo rose 30p to 1422p and Astra lifted 51p to 3203p.

Outside of the top flight, pubs operator JD Wetherspoon surged 5% following news that like-for-like sales were up 9.2% in the 13 weeks to October 29.

Investors seemed unconcerned at warnings it could be dogged by higher costs in the next few months and the stock cheered almost 30.25p to 595p.

The mood was less positive for Carphone Warehouse, which lost an initial gain achieved after the posting of half-year results.

Carphone lifted its dividend by a third, but concerns remained about the company’s prospects following the loss of a supply contract with Vodafone. Shares were off 8p at 286.5p, a drop of 3%.