London open: Ex-div stocks weigh on FTSE 100 early on

Traders chose to take profits on Wednesday morning, taking advantage of the strong gains seen in previous sessions, with the FTSE 100 pulling back sharply from five-year highs.So far this year, the index has gained nearly 10% and is trading near levels not seen since late 2007.According to Reuters, ex-dividend stocks were accounting for 10.71 points of the fall on the Footsie this morning with traders unable to get their hands on the most recent payouts from big-hitters like British American Tobacco, Hargreaves Lansdown, Land Securities, Meggitt, Serco and Standard Chartered.A poor reaction to the latest results of security solutions giant G4S was also weighing on London's benchmark index early on.Traders will be looking out for a number of key economic announcements due later on, including Eurozone industrial production, a medium- to long-term bond auction in Italy, and advance retail sales and business inventories in the States.In other news, Christian Menegatti, the head of research at Roubini Global Economics, has said that the Federal Reserve won't stop its quantitative easing programme before the end of 2014 as it will take time to get down to the 7.25% jobless rate signalled by the central bank.G4S drops as CFO steps downG4S was among the worst performers on the FTSE 100 early on after announcing the resignation of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Trevor Dighton. The news came as the firm unveiled a 10.4% rise in 2012 revenues despite taking a hit over its London Olympic contract blunder.Insurance giant Prudential rose strongly after reporting a 25% increase in operating profit in 2012. The company said its performance was largely driven by its "sweet-spot" markets including Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines and Thailand.Iron ore specialist Ferrexpo rose strongly after revealing a special dividend of 6.6 cents per share (totalling $39m) in its 2012 results despite a 20% fall in revenue.Hikma Pharmaceuticals fell early on after saying that revenue growth would slow to 10% in 2013 from 20.8% last year.Oil and gas group Afren edged higher after reporting positive test results from the Simrit-2 well on the Ain Sifni Block in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.Meanwhile, newly-listed insurance group Direct Line was under the weather on reports that RBS is looking to further reduce its stake in the company.Copper miner Antofagasta gained after HB Markets upgraded its rating on the stock to 'buy', while infrastructure firm Balfour Beatty was lower after HSBC downgraded the shares to 'neutral'.FTSE 100 - RisersPrudential (PRU) 1,049.00p +1.94%Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 2,399.00p +0.80%Severn Trent (SVT) 1,645.00p +0.61%National Grid (NG.) 744.00p +0.40%Sage Group (SGE) 343.50p +0.32%Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 350.30p +0.32%Intu Properties (INTU) 328.50p +0.31%Hammerson (HMSO) 507.00p +0.30%Admiral Group (ADM) 1,348.00p +0.30%United Utilities Group (UU.) 716.00p +0.28%FTSE 100 - FallersStandard Chartered (STAN) 1,730.50p -3.24%G4S (GFS) 299.60p -2.57%British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,520.50p -2.56%Capita (CPI) 872.50p -2.35%Aggreko (AGK) 1,845.00p -2.17%Evraz (EVR) 255.30p -2.07%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 541.00p -1.99%Meggitt (MGGT) 481.30p -1.72%Serco Group (SRP) 615.00p -1.68%Schroders (SDR) 2,130.00p -1.39%FTSE 250 - RisersMan Group (EMG) 101.30p +3.16%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 225.90p +2.68%SDL (SDL) 455.50p +2.59%Synthomer (SYNT) 217.90p +1.40%Raven Russia Ltd (RUS) 72.80p +1.39%Law Debenture Corp. (LWDB) 486.00p +1.33%Redrow (RDW) 173.10p +1.23%Bumi (BUMI) 342.70p +1.18%JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 814.50p +1.05%Regus (RGU) 156.60p +1.03%FTSE 250 - FallersBalfour Beatty (BBY) 257.70p -5.26%Premier Farnell (PFL) 229.10p -3.05%Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 205.20p -2.38%Petropavlovsk (POG) 243.60p -2.33%Fidelity European Values (FEV) 1,431.00p -1.99%Domino's Pizza Group (DOM) 575.00p -1.96%Temple Bar Inv Trust (TMPL) 1,112.00p -1.94%William Hill (WMH) 413.20p -1.76%Kier Group (KIE) 1,242.00p -1.74%Informa (INF) 516.50p -1.71%BC