FTSE 100 movers: Pharmas rally but Glencore slides on sale

London’s FTSE 100 was up 0.6% to 6,124.61 at 1410 BST as investors looked ahead to the minutes from the latest Federal Reserve meeting.

Pharmaceutical stocks racked up healthy gains as investors bet that the termination of Pfizer’s agreement to buy Allergan might make the London-listed companies bid targets.

Shire, AstraZeneca and GlaxoSmithKline were all firmly in the black as Pfizer confirmed that its $160bn agreement to buy Allergan has been terminated by mutual agreement after the US Treasury announced new measures to curb tax inversions.

"Reports that the Allergan-Pfizer merger has been terminated has counter-intuitively sparked buying in other UK and Irish pharmaceutical groups," said CMC Markets’ Jasper Lawler.

"Speculation that Pfizer will look for another partner in its quest to relocate its headquarters and lower its tax burden has sent the shares of Shire and AstraZeneca flying."

Strong R&D pipelines at some UK firms were also seen as a possible reason why they might attract attention from suitors from rivals overseas.

To take note of, a raft of US merger deals had come under increased scrutiny from anti-trust regulators Stateside recently. Of possible interest in that regard, a recent piece from The Economist highlighted how a lack of effective anti-trust regulation in the US might have contributed to record corporate profits, due to the lack of sufficient competition among firms.

CRH was also on the front foot after JP Morgan Cazenove upgraded the stock to ‘overweight’ from ‘neutral’ and lifted the price target to €29 from €26.

JPM said the stock’s valuation was now relatively attractive and broadly in line with the sector average compared to a premium of around 15% over the last three years.

On the downside, Glencore slid after confirming that it has agreed to sell 40% of its agriculture commodities business to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for $2.5bn (£1.8bn) in cash.

The deal, which values Glencore Agri at $6.25bn, which is towards the bottom of analyst expectations, is expected to close in the second half of 2016 with the FTSE 100 using the proceeds to pay down debt.

Budget airline EasyJet flew lower after it reported a rise in passenger numbers in March but a drop in the load factor.

A total of 5,728,114 passengers flew during the month, up 4.3% on a year earlier. On a rolling 12 month basis to 31 March, the airline carried 70,761,515 passengers, up 7.2% on the prior 12 months.

The airline's load factor in March was 91.3%, down 1.3 percentage points on March 2015, while its rolling 12-month load factor of 91.5% was an improvement of 0.6 percentage points.

Risers

Shire Plc (SHP) 4,231.00p 4.49%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,093.00p 3.59%
CRH (CRH) 1,987.00p 2.42%
Prudential (PRU) 1,295.50p 2.17%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,448.00p 2.04%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 924.50p 1.99%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 68.23p 1.93%
Next (NXT) 5,345.00p 1.81%
Barclays (BARC) 149.20p 1.77%
Royal Mail (RMG) 476.80p 1.68%

Fallers

Glencore (GLEN) 135.65p -4.37%
Anglo American (AAL) 507.90p -3.39%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,488.00p -2.23%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 722.10p -1.69%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 540.50p -1.55%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 1,903.50p -1.25%
Whitbread (WTB) 3,803.00p -1.09%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 2,654.00p -0.97%
Capita (CPI) 1,029.00p -0.87%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 983.00p -0.61%