By Sara Sjolin, MarketWatch
LONDON (MarketWatch) --Erasing earlier gains, U.K.'s FTSE 100
index ended Monday in negative territory, with GlaxoSmithKline PLC
dropping after disappointing test results and the broader market
declining in line with other major European indexes.
The London benchmark lost 0.3% to close at 6,598.37, extending
its quarterly loss to 2.2%, the first drop since the three-month
period ending in June last year.
Helping drag the FTSE lower, shares of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)
lost 1.6% after the drug maker released disappointing results from
a late-stage study of Darapladib, a new heart disease drug.
Peer firm AstraZeneca PLC (AZN) lost 1.6%.
More broadly, started to move lower just ahead of the close amid
political jitters in France, as Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault
resigned after his Socialist Party suffered major losses in local
elections over the weekend.
Among shares on the rise in London, some insurance firms
rebounded from losses seen on Friday, when the sector was hit hard
by a report in The Telegraph of plans of an investigation by the
U.K. Financial Conduct Authority into older pensions and savings
plans. The FCA on Friday issued a statement to clarify that it
wasn't looking at applying current standards retrospectively and
said on Monday it launched an independent investigation into a
briefing one of its directors gave to the newspaper.
Shares of Resolution Ltd. gained 0.8% and Aviva PLC rose
1.5%.
Shares of Babcock International Group PLC jumped 4.3% after the
engineering company said the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has
selected the company's joint venture, Cavendish Fluor Partnership,
as the preferred bidder to buy Magnox Ltd. and Research Sites
Restoration Ltd., the license companies for 12 U.K. nuclear
sites.
Separately, the Bank of England said the number of loan
approvals for house purchases was a weaker-than-expected 70,309 in
February, compared with an average of 69,563 over the previous six
months.
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