After four weeks of gains the FTSE finally dropped the ball, shedding 44.50 points to 4,760.80 points by the close today to end the week down as fears of rising US interest rates and a blow to the pharms sector hurt investor confidence.
AstraZenica shed 222p, or nearly 10% to 2,145p after more bad news from the US involving the medicines regulator FDA, which was accused of letting this and other firms of selling medicines without sufficient testing. GlaxoSmithKline fell 45p to 1,147p, which because of its weighting in the FTSE heavily counteracted gains by other sectors. Shire Pharmaceuticals dropped 9.25p to 532.25p. Reuters gained 8.25p to 409p after news overnight it is to seek a sale of its interest in Instinet, an order systems used in US markets. BP gained 4.5p to 538p as it bought back another 5 million ...
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