Headline shares finished the day flat after an indecisive afternoon of trading with Wall Street providing little direction at close. At close, the FTSE 100 was 2.65 poimnts higher at 4916.87, The FTSE 250 closed at 9366.12 up 0.83 points, with the FTSE Smallcaps trading down 1.24 points at 2688.85. At the time of writing, the Dow was trading little changed, down 5.66 points at 9,864.64.
LONDON MARKETS
An afternoon of wobbles which dropped the FTSE into the red saw shares trade flat at close, after a weak attempt at a rise mid-afternoon. Astrazeneca was the star of the day after positive news in the US, with law makers ruling to prevent generic-drug makers from selling lower-cost copies of its cholesterol buster Crestor until 2016. At close AZN was 7.53% at 3169p. BP was higher today on the back of speculation of a bid from Exxon or Shell, finishing the day higher 5.28% at 318.9p. Petrofac saw gains of 2.24% to finish up 1186p. Barclays was higher 1.2% at 270.55, with british American Tobacco also seeing positive moves finishing up 1.86% at 2136.5p Glaxo finished the day up 1.78% at 1143p
Man Group was the undoubted loser of the day, with regulatory concerns weighing heavily on investors minds, finishing down 7.38% at 223.3p. Intercontinental hotels was off 3.8% at 1063p, with Kazahmys down 3.68% at 994p. HMV saw gains of 10.5% closing at 63p after seeing pre-tax profits rise by 17.7% to £74.2m.
Banking giant Barclays expects a "not insubstantial own credit gain" after spreads widened in the second quarter. Group finance director Chris Lucas said the trends underlying performance in the second quarter had been similar to the first three months. But he said investment banking market conditions in May and June had been softer, in particular reflecting lower levels of capital markets and M&A activity.
AVEVA has completed the acquisitions of Logimatic Software and certain trade and assets from ADB Systemer. AVEVA's wholly-owned subsidiary AVEVA Solutions has completed the acquisition of Logimatic Software for consideration of 14.5m which includes deferred consideration of 1.5m.
Carillion has sold its investment in the Queen Alexandra Hospital public private partnership project to HSBC Infrastructure Co Ltd for £31.3m. Carillion said that at the end of December, the combined value of the assets in its balance sheet that are the subject of the transaction was £1.1m.
