LONDON, Oct 26 — UK’s blue-chip index edged lower today as lacklustre quarterly earnings from ad firm WPP and consumer goods company Reckitt Benckiser outweighed market cheer over Rishi Sunak pledging to lead the country out of an economic crisis.
The FTSE 100 index was down 0.1 per cent by 0747 GMT, while the midcap FTSE 250 rose 0.2 per cent.
Shares of WPP dropped 3.6 per cent to the bottom of FTSE 100 after the group tempered its expectations for operating margin growth, and Reckitt Benckiser slumped 3.2 per cent despite providing a positive sales outlook.
Sunak, appointed Britain’s third prime minister in two months on Tuesday, will want to take some time to look at the detail of a fiscal statement originally due at the end of this month, foreign minister James Cleverly said.
Sunak said he would try to fix the mess left by his predecessor, restore trust in British politics and tackle a “profound economic crisis”.
Shares of Standard Chartered and Barclays slipped even as both the lenders reported higher quarterly profit.
AstraZeneca Plc jumped 2.2 per cent after the British drugmaker said that its experimental drug Capivasertib met the main goals of a breast cancer study. — Reuters