By Roger Baird, Press Association City Staff
Morrisons was a big top-flight faller after the supermarket revealed another hefty slide in sales while the Bank of England downgraded UK growth this year.
The UK's fourth-biggest grocer said like-for-like sales dropped 2.6%, excluding fuel, in its third quarter to November 1. Including fuel, same-store sales were 5.1% lower.
The FTSE 100 Index was down 48 points to 6365, after the Bank of England voted to leave rates on hold at 0.5%, where they have remained for more than six years, and pushed back a rate hike until well into 2016.
Germany's Dax and France's Cac 40 were both around 0.5% higher.
The pound was a cent lower against the US dollar at just under 1.53, after the Bank pegged back the UK's economic growth outlook to around 2.7% for 2015, down from 2.8% previously. Sterling was also a cent lower against the euro at just over 1.40.
Morrisons fell almost 6%, or 10p to 167.5p, as its current quarterly fall is steeper than the 2.4% decline seen in the previous three months.
One of the strongest risers in the top flight was drug giant AstraZeneca, which raised its full-year revenue guidance after stronger-than-expected quarterly sales driven by its key heart treatment drug Brilinta.
The firm said third-quarter sales fell 10% to 5.9 billion US dollars (£3.8 billion), just ahead of forecasts. This was aided by sales of Brilinta, which jumped 73%, and a 12% uplift in emerging market drug revenues over the period.
The firm raised its annual sales forecast in line with last year's 26.1 billion US dollars (£17 billion) total, from previous guidance of a low single-digit decline from its revenue haul 12 months ago.
Shares lifted almost 3%, or 119.5p to 4247p.
The owner of insurer More Than, RSA Insurance, lifted more than 3%, or 14.2p to 429.3p, after it said its turnaround remained on track despite the "distraction" of an earlier collapsed £5.6 billion takeover attempt by Swiss rival Zurich.
RSA posted underlying net written premiums up 1% to £4.4 billion, boosted by rises in its UK and Scandinavian businesses offsetting falls at its Ireland and Canadian operations.
The group hired former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester in February 2014 to revive its fortunes after it was rocked by a series of profit warnings.
The biggest risers in the FTSE 100 Index were RSA Insurance, up 14.2p at 429.3p, AstraZeneca, up 119.5p at 4247p, easyJet, up 40p to 1772p, and Persimmon, up 41p at 1900p.
The biggest fallers in the FTSE 100 Index were Anglo American, down 44.5p at 534.6p, Standard Chartered, down 42.2p at 627p, Morrisons, down 10p at 167.5p, and Randgold Resources, down 191p at 4121p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here