FTSE 100 watch: Footsie flat amid rise in sterling

The FTSE 100 has started the new week little changed, pressured by a strong pound which is partly offsetting the impact of upbeat economic data on the other side of the Atlantic. In individual movers, shares in Anglo-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) are outperforming the market as the company disclosed that it had received positive EU opinion for one of its oncology treatments.

FTSE 100 little changed

As of 12:43 BST, the Footsie had lost 1.14 points to stand 0.02 percent lower at 7,427.05. A rise in the pound is pressuring the index, weighing on blue-chips with international exposure. The FTSE 100, however, is nevertheless finding support in strong gross domestic product data out of the US which has helped prop up market sentiment around the world.

“US GDP has bolstered risk appetite, and the banking numbers out of the UK have been solid thus far, on hopes that growth is looking better around the globe,” IG Markets analyst Chris Beauchamp commented, as quoted by Reuters.

Individual Footsie movers

In individual blue-chip movers, AstraZeneca is trading higher after reporting that the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use of the European Medicines Agency had adopted a positive opinion, recommending its Lynparza drug as a first-line maintenance treatment of BRCA-mutated advanced ovarian cancer. The AstraZeneca share price is 1.05 percent better off at 5,855.98p.

WPP (LON:WPP) has been another prominent FTSE 100 riser after Barclays lifted its rating on the shares, pointing to the disposal of the company’s Kantar unit, ‘some confidence’ in management’s ability to turn the business around, the stock’s valuation, as well as the fact that organic growth is ‘not getting worse’. WPP’s shares are currently changing hands 2.03 percent higher at 974.40p.

The FTSE 100 index was 0.01 percent higher at 7,428.94 points as of 12:54 BST on Monday, 29 April 2019.