AstraZeneca upbeat on Covid-19 antibody cocktail, XP Power momentum accelerates

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The FTSE 100 is expected to open 19 points lower on Monday, having closed up 0.25% on Friday at 7,095.55.

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AstraZeneca said its antibody cocktail to combat Covid-19 had achieved a “statistically significant reduction” in the virus or death in a phase 3 trial. The drug, known as AZD7442, met the primary endpoint, reducing the risk of developing severe Covid-19 or death (from any cause) by 50% compared to placebo in outpatients who had been symptomatic for seven days or less, the company said on Monday. In a prespecified analysis of participants who received treatment within five days of symptom onset, AZD7442 reduced the risk of developing severe Covid or death from any cause by 67% compared to placebo.

Power control components company XP Power said on Monday that the “strong momentum” in order intake accelerated in the third quarter, with orders up 87% at constant currency and 73% as reported to £97.2m. The FTSE 250 company said its order growth was driven by continued strength in the semiconductor manufacturing equipment sector, the ongoing recovery in industrial technology, and a pick-up in healthcare, where third quarter orders were 70% above 2019 levels. As expected, revenue of £61.6m in the quarter was down 5% on a constant currency basis as the exceptional Covid-19-related healthcare revenue in the prior year was not repeated.

Newspaper round-up

The owner of Liberty Steel has pledged to restart its plants in Rotherham and Stocksbridge in South Yorkshire this month, saving the “substantial majority” of 1,000 jobs, by pumping £50m in cash into the business. The move comes after Sanjeev Gupta’s conglomerate, GFG Alliance, said it had refinanced debts at its Australian steel and mining business. - Guardian

Britain’s financial regulator, accused of failing from “top to bottom” after a string of scandals, has paid out bonuses of more than £125m to its staff since 2016, the Observer can reveal. Campaigners said the payouts at the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) were an “absolute insult” to savers who had lost their life savings because of the regulator’s systemic failings. - Guardian

Ministers have been accused of hypocrisy after bosses at Britain’s nationalised rail operator were handed an inflation-busting pay rise despite ordinary rail workers being forced to endure a two-year freeze on wages. Executives on the six-person board of DfT OLR Holdings, which runs the LNER and Northern rail networks, shared remuneration of £718,000 this year according to recent filed accounts, a rise of 5.7pc on 2020. - Telegraph

GlaxoSmithKline investors hoping for a change of heart were disappointed. The chairman, Sir Jonathan Symonds, is not a man for turning. Roughly 30 of the pharmaceutical giant’s biggest investors dialled into Zoom on Thursday afternoon. Billed as a crunch meeting to garner support for the board’s transformation plans, it was hosted by the Investor Forum, an influential group that forced Unilever to backtrack on shifting its headquarters to the Netherlands. - Telegraph

The City regulator is facing new criticism over its handling of the £237 million London Capital & Finance investment scandal from an independent commissioner. The Financial Conduct Authority is at risk of censure from the financial regulators complaints commissioner, who has been investigating decisions it made in the fallout from the affair. - The Times

US close

Stocks on Wall Street closed in negative territory on Friday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average down 0.03% at 34,746.25.

The S&P 500 was off 0.19% at 4,391.34, and the Nasdaq Composite lost 0.51% to 14,579.54.