Astrazeneca Share News (AZN)

(ShareCast News) - The FTSE 100 rose 0.66% to 6,873.69 points in afternoon trade on Tuesday, with housebuilders topping the London index.Persimmon led housebuilders higher after reporting a better-than-expected jump in first half profits. Pre-tax profit rose 29% to £352.3m in the six months to 30 June on a 12% increase in revenue to £1.49bn. Analysts at Deutsche Bank had anticipated a 26% increase in pre-tax profits to £345m.Tesco rallied after Kantar Worldpanel said sales in the 12 weeks ending on 14 August fell 0.4%, albeit at the slowest rate of decline in six months. Fraser McKevitt, head of retail and consumer insight at Kantar, said the drop in Tesco's sales - stretching back to March 2015 - might be about to hit bottom, with the grocer possibly returning to growth in 2016.Going the other way, Hikma Pharmaceuticals slumped ahead of its interims on Wednesday. In a trading update on 4 August, the drug maker warned it expected full year core operating profit of its generics arm to be between $30m and $40m, compared to $46m in 2015.Hikma said at the time: "The revenue impact from the delay in certain new product approvals will be largely offset by higher contract manufacturing revenue."This change in the mix of revenue will have an adverse impact on profitability in 2016, which will also be impacted by higher than expected costs resulting from the acceleration in timing of certain pipeline-related litigation".Fellow pharmaceutical stocks Shire and Astrazeneca were also in the red.National Grid shares declined after energy regulator Ofgem rejected its request to recover costs incurred under a Drax contract as it failed to meet the test criteria.National Grid had been looking to recover the costs of two contracts for grid services that it agreed with SSE and Drax worth £113m in total.The request was made as an 'income adjusting event' where National Grid applies for an increase in its cost targets to cover unforeseen events beyond its control.But Ofgem has decided that costs the company incurred under the Drax contract did not meet the test for an 'income adjusting event'. FTSE 100 - RisersBarratt Developments (BDEV) 484.20p 4.47%Tesco (TSCO) 165.50p 3.76%Persimmon (PSN) 1,861.00p 3.73%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 195.00p 3.61%Berkeley Group Holdings (The) (BKG) 2,638.00p 3.45%Anglo American (AAL) 862.40p 3.28%Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,631.00p 3.03%Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 163.50p 3.02%BHP Billiton (BLT) 1,063.00p 2.90%Standard Life (SL.) 359.30p 2.69%FTSE 100 - FallersMediclinic International (MDC) 1,064.00p -2.03%Compass Group (CPG) 1,487.00p -0.54%Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 1,891.00p -0.53%Shire Plc (SHP) 5,070.00p -0.49%CRH (CRH) 2,499.00p -0.36%London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 2,880.00p -0.24%Royal Dutch Shell 'B' (RDSB) 1,969.50p -0.23%AstraZeneca (AZN) 5,084.00p -0.14%National Grid (NG.) 1,080.00p -0.09%3i Group (III) 624.50p -0.08%