By Barbara Kollmeyer, MarketWatch
MADRID (MarketWatch) -- London stocks fell on Friday as Wall
Street saw choppy trade and as investors wrapped up the month and
quarter with losses.
Shares of Pearson PLC rose after a media report that its
Financial Times unit could be up for sale, a report later denied by
the company.
The FTSE 100 index fell 0.5% to close at 6,215.47, contributing
to a monthly drop of 5.6% and a quarterly loss of 3.1%.
Among the heavyweights, some oil companies pulled back from
recent gains, with BG Group PLC losing 1.1%. Mining companies also
stumbled, with BHP Billiton PLC (BHP) dropping over 1% and Rio
Tinto PLC (RIO) each losing 0.7% after posting big gains the
previous day.
Drug companies followed moves in Europe, where big names were
weaker. Shares of AstraZeneca SA (AZN) dropped more than 1% after
it said it had completed its acquisition of California-based Pearl
Therapeutics.
Another heavyweight, SABMiller PLC fell 2.1% after Nomura
analyst Ian Shackleton said he expects a slow start to the year
when the company reports its first-quarter volumes next month.
"Although we still see a strong long-term growth story,
valuation is looking quite full, and we expect some consolidation
of the shares at the current level," he said in a note.
On the upside, shares of heavyweight Vodafone Group PLC rose
0.8% after Deutsche Bank upgraded the telecom company to buy from
hold. Analyst Paul Reynolds said the recent offer from Vodafone for
German cable operator Kabel Deutschland Holding AG could be the
"tipping point" for Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) to buy
Vodafone's minority stake in mobile-operator Verizon Wireless.
Deal talk pushed shares of Pearson PLC up 1.5%. The Edge Review,
a digital magazine based in Malaysia, said Rupert Murdoch, the
owner of News Corp (NWS)(NWS)(NWS) which owns MarketWatch, the
publisher of this report, was in talks with Abu Dhabi's state media
group to acquire Pearson's Financial Times Group for around $1.2
billion.
A spokesman for Pearson said the FT Group was "not for sale,"
while a spokesman for News Corp said the report was "completely
untrue."(NWS)
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