Vodafone bucks falling FTSE
Mobile phone giant Vodafone bucked a falling market today as the company upped profit guidance.
The heavyweight stock largely missed out on last year’s rally but jumped almost 5%, up 6.6p to 141.1p, as the group also noted improving trends in UK and Germany.
But the FTSE 100 Index was 40.6 points lower at 5212.5, with the Bank of England decision to call a temporary halt to its quantitative easing operations coming as little surprise to traders.
Metal prices fell on a stronger dollar, hitting mining firms, while many heavyweight banks were down on negative broker comment. US markets were also expected to open slightly down this afternoon.
The fall in London was partly due to the performance of Royal Dutch Shell after the oil giant revealed a 75% slump in fourth quarter profits.
Shell blamed weaker refining margins and general economic pressure, but with the group continuing to lag behind its rivals shares lost another 33.5p to 1676p, a drop of 2%. BP added 0.9p to 575.2p after its better-received results on Tuesday.
In a busy session for corporate results, insurer Aviva edged lower – down 1.3p to 396.7p – despite beating market expectations with a 14% drop in new business sales.
Royal Bank of Scotland was among the fallers however after a broker downgrade from Exane BNP Paribas, which sent shares 1.2p lower to 34.2p. Lloyds Banking Group was the leading top-flight faller – down more than 4% or 2.5p to 52.5p - while Barclays shed 11.3p to 284.05p.
Elsewhere in the financial sector hedge fund group Man continued to lose ground as the performance of its flagship AHL fund falters. Man, which has fallen by almost a third since disappointing with a trading update last month, was down another 8.2p to 228.9p today.
Dove-to-Lipton ice tea consumer giant Unilever was also a prominent faller despite beating forecasts for sales growth. The company was 75p cheaper at 1859p.
Drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline was up 13.5p to 1230.5p after its own results. The company, which makes the swine flu vaccine, is targeting a further £500m (€573m) in cost savings by 2012.
There was also better news from Yell after the Yellow Pages directories firm highlighted a slowdown in its recent revenues decline. Shares were at the top of the FTSE 250 Index risers board after rallying 13% or 4.88p to 41.68p.
