LONDON MARKET OPEN: Stocks Mixed As AstraZeneca Earnings Disappoint

LONDON (Alliance News) - Stocks in London opened mixed on Friday with the FTSE 100 retreating from record highs on Thursday, as AstraZeneca led the blue chip fallers as first quarter earnings slipped. The FTSE 100 index was down 0.1%, or 9.81 points, at 7,777.52 early Friday. The blue chip index closed up 0.7% at 7,787.97 on Thursday - a fresh closing record high.The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was flat at 21,014.54. However the midcap index hit a fresh record high of 21,057.73 just after the open. The AIM All-Share index was up 0.7% at 1,085.95. The Cboe UK 100 index was flat at 13,198.38. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 19,247.86, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was up 0.1% at 12,886.02.On the London Stock Exchange, DS Smith was up 2.3% after Davy upgraded the recycled packaging firm to Outperform from Neutral.Irish peer Smurfit Kappa, which is being pursued by US rival International Paper Co, was up 2.5% and Anglo-South African paper and packaging company Mondi was also up 1.0%.At the other end of the large cap index, Johnson Matthey was the worst blue chip performer down 3.5% after shares in the speciality chemicals company hit a fresh 2018 high of 3,546.00 pence on Thursday. The stock is up 11% so far in 2018. AstraZeneca was down 2.6% after the Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company reported a substantial fall in profit for the first quarter of 2018, as revenue from externalisation dropped sharply.Pretax profit for the three months to the end of March dropped by 36% to USD374.0 million from USD582.0 million for the same period the year before, due to a lower gross margin of 77.3% from 82.3%, higher selling, general and administrative costs, and a sharp fall in Externalisation revenue.Externalisation revenue fell by 66% to USD193.0 million from USD562.0 million, leading to total revenue dropping by 4.0% to USD5.18 billion from USD5.40 billion the prior year, despite a 3.0% increase in Product Sales. Product sales rose 3.0% at actual exchange rates to USD4.98 billion from GBP4.84 billion, but the group added that product sales growth this year is weighted to the second half.Vodafone was down 1.5% after Citigroup downgraded the telecommunications company to Neutral from Buy. Smith & Nephew was down 1.0% after Commerzbank cut the medical devices maker to Hold from Buy. In the FTSE 250, Capita was the best performer, up 2.7% after JPMorgan raised the outsourcer to Overweight from Neutral late Thursday. SSP Group was up 1.9% after Citi raised the food and drink concessions operator to Buy from Neutral. Sterling was firm quoted at USD1.3521 early Friday versus USD1.3510 at the London equities close on Thursday.The euro was higher quoted at USD1.1818 early Friday, from USD1.1795 at the European equities close Thursday.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was down 0.3% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was down 0.1%.In the US on Thursday fresh trade war concerns re-emerged weighing on global investor sentiment. Blaming the trade policies of previous administrations, US President Donald Trump on Thursday expressed some doubt about whether high-level trade talks with China will be successful.Trump told reporters he tends to doubt the talks will be successful in remarks during an Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg."The reason I doubt it is because China has become very spoiled," Trump said. "The EU has become very spoiled. Other countries have become very spoiled, because they always got 100% of whatever they wanted from the US."However, Trump also claimed he would not allow the US to be taken advantage of anymore and sounded more optimistic in later remarks.The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.4% Friday. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 1.2%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is up 0.5%.In Asian economic news, nationwide consumer prices in Japan were up just 0.6% on year in April, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications said.That was shy of expectations for a gain of 0.7% and was down sharply from 1.1% in March.Core CPI was up 0.7% on year, beneath forecasts for 0.8% and down from 0.9% in the previous month. On a monthly basis, overall CPI was down 0.4% and core CPI eased 0.1%.