Hikma Pharmaceuticals Share News (HIK)

LONDON (Alliance News) - Reversing some early gains, stocks in London had tumbled firmly into the red by midday on Wednesday with miners falling and apprehension around Turkey remaining.The pound, meanwhile, was trending lower despite UK inflation accelerating for the first time since November last year.The FTSE 100 down 0.8%, or 64.14 points, at 7,547.50 - having hit a high of 7,632.07 in early trade Wednesday. The FTSE 250 was down 0.4%, or 73.60 points, at 20,436.16. The AIM All-Share was 0.2% lower at 1,085.60.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.4% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was down 0.1% at midday. In the US, stocks are pointed to follow Europe with a lower start. The Dow Jones is called down 0.3%, while the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq are seen opening 0.2% lower. Focus in the US on Wednesday is on retail sales at 1330 BST. Before this, at 1200 BST, are MBA mortgage applications."The problem for risk appetite is that the bounce by Turkey's lira largely reflected profits being taken. It was not due to effectiveness of the central bank's piecemeal and relatively small dollar-liquidity moves," said Ken Odeluga, market analyst at City Index.The lira on Monday hit record lows, before steadying on Tuesday but experiencing shaky trade overnight."Turkey's lira lost all Wednesday gains at one point, following Tuesday's bounce of more than 8%. It is now firmer again, though clearly volatile. It's uncertain whether the rebound will be sustained. " added Odeluga.Inflaming the situation, Turkey increased tariffs on US-made products ranging from cars to tobacco on Wednesday. The new measures, published in the official gazette, go into effect immediately and include a 140% hike in US-made alcoholic beverages and an increase of 120% on US cars.In the UK, the pound was lower as the Office for National Statistics on Wednesday showed UK inflation accelerated for the first time in eight months in July.Consumer prices climbed 2.5% year-on-year in July, as expected by economists, but slightly faster than the 2.4% increase in June. Core inflation that excludes energy, food, alcoholic beverages and tobacco, held steady at 1.9% in July.However, analysts expect inflation growth to trail off in the short-term."Barring any further gyrations in oil prices, we think July's figure represents a peak, and we expect CPI to begin trending downwards over the next few months gradually," said James Smith, developed markets economist at ING.Smith continued: "The impact of the pound's post-Brexit plunge is continuing to fade - prices have more-or-less adjusted to the weaker level of sterling - and this is seeing core goods inflation slow. We expect this to keep core CPI close to 2% for the foreseeable future, although there's a risk that this slips lower."Sterling was quoted at USD1.2709 Wednesday midday, having traded around USD1.2729 prior to the release of the data and lower than USD1.2736 at the London equities close on Tuesday.Hindering the FTSE 100 on Wednesday were blue-chip miners, with Antofagasta, Anglo American and Glencore down 3.5%, 3.4% and 3.0%, respectively."The price of copper has this week hit a 13-month low following a sharp slowdown in China's fixed-asset investment growth. This news, together with waning investor appetite for riskier assets, has unsurprisingly put a dent in the mining sector," explained Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell."Copper is widely considered to be a bellwether for the global economy and so a weak price is cause for concern," he added.The FTSE 350 Mining Sector Index - which houses many of London's commodity stocks - was down 2.6% at midday.Unable to offset these losses was Admiral's 3.4% rise, as its interim results beat market forecasts.The FTSE 100-listed insurer posted a 9.1% increase in pretax profit to GBP211.0 million from GBP193.4 million the year before. Revenue increased 14% to GBP1.66 billion from GBP1.45 billion.The company is proposing an interim dividend of 60.0 pence per share, a 7.1% increase year-on-year from 56.0p paid the previous year.Chief Executive Officer David Stevens said: "Zut alors. Nos operations europeennes sont rentables! Or probably more accurately, given that over half of our European customers are Italian - le nostre compagnie Europee sono in profitto. Moreover, the European insurers delivered overall profitability whilst growing the business by almost a fifth in a year."The European insurance business - comprising operations in Spain, Italy and France - posted its first ever profit of GBP2.5 million, versus a GBP5 million loss a year ago.GlaxoSmithKline gained 1.5% after the drugmaker said ViiV Healthcare - its HIV treatment joint venture - saw its Atlas study meet its primary endpoint.Phase 3 of the study - for a long-acting, injectable two-drug regimen for the treatment of HIV - showed long-acting cabotegravir and rilpivirine, injected once a month, had similar efficacy to a standard of care, daily, oral three-drug regimen at Week 48.The injectable treatment regimen met the primary endpoint for non-inferiority, Glaxo said. Overall safety, virologic response and drug resistance results for the injectable regimen were consistent with results from the phase II Latte and Latte-2 studies.Sat atop the mid-cap FTSE 250 was Hikma Pharmaceuticals, up 6.3% as it upgraded its revenue guidance for two of its units.Hikma on Wednesday said pretax profit for the six months to the end of June totalled USD141.0 million, up from USD100.0 million reported for the same period a year earlier, as revenue climbed 11% to USD989.0 million from USD895.0 million. Looking ahead, Hikma said it now expects revenue for its Injectables division for 2018 to come in between USD775 million and USD825 million. Previously, Hikma had targeted the unit to achieve revenue in a range of USD750 million to USD800 million.Hikma also now expects the Generics division to deliver revenue in the range of USD600 million to USD650 million, up from the USD550 million to USD600 million range forecast in mid-May.Balfour Beatty, up 2.9%, boosted its interim payout by a third.The construction company multiplied its pretax profit to GBP50 million from just GBP12 million the year before. Revenue decreased 9.4% to GBP3.84 billion from GBP4.20 billion.While revenue fell, the company said, gross profit increased and overheads declined, resulting in improved profitability.Balfour is proposing an interim dividend increase of 33% to 1.6p per share from 1.2p last year.Kaz Minerals was slumped at the bottom of the mid-caps, down 6.7% as the copper miner was dented along with blue-chip peers by tumbling commodity prices.