London midday: FTSE 100 set for new high as earnings impress

(Sharecast News) - A barrage of well-received corporate earnings and potential M&A activity in the mining sector gave London's FTSE 100 a boost on Thursday, with the index once again trading at record highs. A £31bn takeover proposal by Australian mining giant BHP Group for Anglo American lifted the mood, along with some well-received results from AstraZeneca, Unilever, Hikma and Barclays.

The FTSE 100 was up around 0.7% by the midday mark at 8,093.64, on track to register its third record closing high of the week. However, the second-tier FTSE 250 was struggling to keep its head above water after some sharp falls from Moonpig, Trainline and WH Smith.

Along with a barrage of corporate earnings in London, there will be yet more quarterly figures from America's tech titans on Thursday, with Google, Microsoft and Intel all due to report today. Markets gave a negative reaction to seemingly better-than-expected results from Meta after the closing bell on Wednesday, as investors continue to question sky-high valuations following the strong performance of tech stocks so far this year.

Traders will also be keeping their eyes on economic data on Thursday, with the first reading of US gross domestic product for the first quarter. Consensus is that the economy expanded at a quarterly annualised pace of 2.5%, down on 3.4% at the end of 2023.

Anglo jumps on BHP proposal

Anglo American jumped 12% after confirming that it had received an unsolicited non-binding and highly conditional all-share takeover proposal from Australia's BHP Group. Shareholders of the London-listed miner would receive 0.7097 BHP shares for each Anglo share, valuing the company at £31.1bn. Anglo said it was reviewing the proposal.

AstraZeneca was in demand after the drugmaker said first-quarter revenues were up 18% on the back of strong sales of its cancer drugs. Revenues came in at $12.7bn, beating the $11.9bn guidance, lifting shares up 6%.

Barclays was up more than 5% despite reporting a 12% fall in first-quarter profit on lower income as customers shopped around for better savings rates and mortgage deals. Pre-tax profit for the first three months of the year fell to £2.2bn from £2.6bn a year earlier and slightly better than its own consensus forecast of £2.195bn.

Pharmaceuticals group Hikma rose strongly after making a "strong and encouraging start" to 2024, with all three business segments performing well, while consumer products giant Unilever maintained its full-year guidance after a solid first quarter.

Among the fallers was grocer Sainsbury despite delivering better-than-expected earnings for the year to 2 March. Underlying pre-tax profit rose 1.6% to £701m, beating Sainsbury's own guidance of £670-700m.

Online ticketing platform Trainline shares were 8% lower on the same day that the Labour Party pledged to renationalise Britain's railways if it is elected. Labour said it would take five years to conclude the plan.

A host of stocks were trading lower after going ex-dividend, meaning that from today shareholders won't be able to access their latest dividend payouts, including Legal & General, Greggs, Bakkavor Group, St James's Place and Morgan Sindall.

Moonpig tumbled nearly 11% after a number of shareholders placed around 25m shares in the company at 160p each, which is a discount of just under 10% to the closing price a day earlier. According to Bloomberg, the placing represented about 7.3% of Moonpig's issued share capital.

WH Smith also fell sharply despite reporting its confidence in meeting full-year expectations as it underwhelmed with its first-half results. The retailer said that growth had slowed at the start of the second half on the back of strong comparatives with last year.

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 8,093.64 0.66% FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,722.19 0.01% techMARK (TASX) 4,522.36 0.51%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Anglo American (AAL) 2,473.50p 12.18% AstraZeneca (AZN) 11,988.00p 5.60% Unilever (ULVR) 4,068.00p 5.31% Barclays (BARC) 201.20p 5.26% Antofagasta (ANTO) 2,223.00p 2.63% Hikma Pharmaceuticals (HIK) 1,839.00p 1.43% Land Securities Group (LAND) 645.50p 1.25% Croda International (CRDA) 4,712.00p 1.25% easyJet (EZJ) 542.60p 1.19% Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,147.50p 1.15%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Legal & General Group (LGEN) 236.50p -4.87% BAE Systems (BA.) 1,321.50p -3.08% St James's Place (STJ) 431.40p -2.84% Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 406.60p -2.49% Schroders (SDR) 359.00p -2.23% Whitbread (WTB) 3,051.00p -1.96% Diageo (DGE) 2,760.50p -1.83% Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 263.40p -1.72% Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 8,995.00p -1.69% Convatec Group (CTEC) 280.20p -1.68%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Inchcape (INCH) 777.00p 8.07% Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 2,222.00p 5.11% PureTech Health (PRTC) 223.00p 4.94% Travis Perkins (TPK) 735.50p 3.23% Abrdn (ABDN) 143.25p 3.09% TBC Bank Group (TBCG) 3,360.00p 2.75% Ferrexpo (FXPO) 52.30p 2.55% Close Brothers Group (CBG) 470.00p 2.44% PPHE Hotel Group Ltd (PPH) 1,530.00p 2.34% Crest Nicholson Holdings (CRST) 187.50p 1.79%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Moonpig Group (MOON) 158.80p -10.59% Trainline (TRN) 314.60p -8.28% WH Smith (SMWH) 1,186.00p -5.72% Indivior (INDV) 1,461.00p -3.50% Bakkavor Group (BAKK) 119.00p -3.25% Greggs (GRG) 2,696.00p -3.02% Morgan Sindall Group (MGNS) 2,225.00p -2.84% Auction Technology Group (ATG) 517.00p -2.45% Allianz Technology Trust (ATT) 335.50p -2.19% FirstGroup (FGP) 167.00p -2.17%