Britain's top share index fell on Wednesday in a shortened Christmas Eve session, with soft crude prices hurting energy stocks while AstraZeneca fell after US authorities requested more data on its Seroquel drug. The FTSE 100 closed 39.39 points lower, or 0.9 percent, at 4,216.59 for a weekly loss of 1.6 percent. Trading will resume on December 29.
Activity was thin, with just about 156 million shares changing hands. That compared with Wednesday's 607 million and last week's daily average of 1.12 billion. "We see it getting worse before it gets better. I think there will be recovery in the second half of 2009," said Chris Hossain, senior sales manager at ODL Securities.
Oil producers took the most points off the index as crude prices dipped below $39 a barrel, a far cry from their peak of $147 in July. BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Cairn Energy were down between 1.7 percent and 2.2 percent. AstraZeneca shed 3.1 percent after the drugmaker said the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had requested further information relating to a supplemental new drug application for its schizophrenia drug Seroquel.
"The announcement this morning ... represents another setback for the company's pipeline," Panmure Gordon said in a note. Within the pharmaceutical sector, GlaxoSmithKline slipped 0.3 percent and Shire dropped 1.9 percent. Bank stocks were mixed, with HSBC and HBOS up, while Standard Charatered, Barclays, Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds TSB were down.
In Europe, Belgium-based financial services group Fortis fell more than 8 percent when it unveiled a currency loss of $413 million. The Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors said UK house price will fall about 10 percent in 2009 with risks skewed to the downside, resulting in a peak-to-trough drop of at least 25 percent.
The UK benchmark has fallen more than 34 percent this year on fears of a long and painful global recession, triggered by a meltdown in the risky US subprime mortgage market. Retailers came under pressure on the final shopping day before Christmas as worries about the survival of many high street names remained, with three more chains, menswear group The Officers Club, entertainment retailer Zavvi and tea merchants Whittards of Chelsea having called in administrators.
Home Retail sagged 2 percent and Kingfisher lost 2.5 percent. BT Group fell after going ex-dividend. Hedge fund Man Group advanced 4.9 percent. The company said late on Tuesday that the net asset value of its main AHL fund gained 1.9 percent last week.