Results, downgrades keep Britain's FTSE under pressure

LONDON: Britain's top-share index steadied at one-month highs on Thursday after five straight sessions of gains as disappointing results and downgrades weighed, as well as a slump in Hikma's shares after a setback to one of its drugs.

The blue chip FTSE 100 index ended flat at 7,386.63 points, having risen for 5 straight sessions, while the mid caps fell 0.4 percent.

The Bank of England's inflation report that showed interest rates were unlikely to rise within the next two years and that its Monetary Policy Committee voted 7-1 in favour of keeping rates on hold this month had little impact on British stocks.

"(There was) no hawkish surprise from the Bank of England," said ETX Capital analyst Neil Wilson.

Pharma firm Hikma sunk 8.2 percent and hit its lowest level in around 5 months after US regulators decided not to approve its generic copy of GlaxoSmithKline's blockbuster lung drug Advair.

Hikma also said that the likelihood of an approval this year was now low.

Shares in Hikma's mid-cap partner Vectura plunged 8.9 percent.

Results also weighed, with BT falling 4.5 percent after reporting fourth-quarter results.

The telecoms group said it would cut 4,000 jobs in its Global Services unit and scale back its dividend growth ambitions in a bid to recover from an accounting scandal and a profit warning.

"Given the challenges that BT is facing at the moment, including lots of competition, the regulatory issues, and the debt that it took on to fund the purchase of EE, and the pension scheme revaluation coming around this year, it's probably in the business' longer-term interests to be prudent," Laith Khalaf, senior market analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown, said.

Likewise South Africa-exposed paper and packaging firm Mondi dropped 1.7 percent after its first-quarter profit fell due to lower selling prices and inflationary cost pressures.

Energy supplier Centrica was another sizeable faller, down 5.4 percent after J.P. Morgan cut its rating on the stock to "underweight" from "overweight".

J.P. Morgan analysts pointed to concerns around the impact of regulation of Centrica's 'Standard Variable Tariff' customer base, and around the potential emergence of a price war.

Adding to the pressure, Centrica's shares also went ex-dividend on Thursday, and it was joined by Admiral Group and Sainsbury which also traded without entitlement to their latest dividend payment.

A rally among mining stocks provided some relief to the losses, though, with precious metals miner Fresnillo, copper miner Antofagasta and Anglo American among the top gainers, all up between 1 percent to 5 percent as the underlying prices of gold and copper rose.