(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened higher on Wednesday driven by progress over a US stimulus deal and on tackling the coronavirus pandemic.
The FTSE 100 index was up 52.26 points, or 0.8%, at 6,568.91. The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was up 163.89 points, or 0.8%, at 20,854.23. The AIM All-Share index was up 0.5% at 1,194.91.
The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.8% at 653.35. The Cboe 250 was up 0.8% at 18,407.31 and the Cboe Small Companies was flat at 12,230.54.
In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris was up 0.8% while the DAX 30 in Frankfurt was up 1.4%.
UK drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline and German biopharmaceutical company CureVac announced a new EUR150 million collaboration to jointly develop next-generation mRNA vaccines for Covid-19, with the potential for a "multi-valent approach" to address multiple emerging variants in one vaccine.
Under the terms of the collaboration agreement, Glaxo will have exclusive rights to develop, manufacture, and commercialise the vaccine in all countries with the exception of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. It also will be the marketing authorisation holder for all countries other than Switzerland. Glaxo will make an upfront payment to CureVac of EUR75 million and a further milestone payment of EUR75 million, conditional on the achievement of specific milestones.
Further, Glaxo will also support the manufacture of up to 100 million doses of CureVac's first generation Covid-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV in 2021.
GlaxoSmithKline will report annual results at midday on Wednesday. The stock was up 0.7%.
In the FTSE 100, Vodafone was the best performer, up 3.7%, after the telecommunications firm said it returned to organic service revenue growth in its third-quarter, helped by a much stronger showing in Germany.
Total revenue in the quarter ended December 31 fell 4.7% to EUR11.20 billion from EUR11.75 billion a year earlier. The organic figure - which strips out the effects M&A activity and currency movements - was 0.4%.
Vodafone generates the bulk of its cash from service revenue, which includes monthly access charges, airtime usage and roaming. In the third quarter ended December, service revenue rose 0.4% on an organic basis. The organic service revenue figure is one that is closely eyed by analysts.
In Germany alone, service revenue rose 1.0% year-on-year on both an organic and reported basis to EUR2.91 billion.
Richard Hunter, head of markets at interactive investor, commented: "Any improvements in a company of Vodafone's size are likely to be incremental, and the latest set of figures build on the progress being made...Despite the challenges, Vodafone remains a cash generating behemoth, with its multi-million customer base making a powerful cumulative contribution to income."
Aviva was up 3.4% after Morgan Stanley upgraded the insurer to Overweight from Equal Weight.
Taylor Wimpey and Persimmon were up 2.5% and 2.2% respectively after Barclays upgraded both housebuilders to Overweight from Equal Weight.
Ferguson rose 1.5% after the plumbing and heating products supplier said it is in the process of registering with the US Securities & Exchange Commission to enable trading of its ordinary shares in the US.
Ferguson anticipates that the additional US listing will become effective in early March and confirmed that it has applied to list its ordinary shares on the New York Stock Exchange. In addition, Ferguson will retain its premium listing on the London Stock Exchange and inclusion in the FTSE 100 index.
At the other end of the large caps, Glencore was 0.5% lower. The commodities house reported declines in annual copper, cobalt and coal output but increases in the two precious metals, gold and silver.
Copper production fell by 8% in 2020 to 1.26 million tonnes from 1.37 million, though Glencore said copper output was steady on 2019 when excluding Mutanda, which is currently on care and maintenance.
Cobalt production dropped 41% to 27,400 ounces from 46,300 ounces, and coal by 24% to 106.2 million tonnes from 139.5 million in 2019. However, gold output rose by 3% to 916,000 ounces in 2020 from 886,000 and silver by 2% to 32.8 million ounces from 32.0 million.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 1.0%. In China, the Shanghai Composite ended down 0.5%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong ended 0.3% lower. The S&P/ASX 200 in Sydney closed up 0.9%.
The pound was quoted at USD1.3675 on Wednesday morning, higher from USD1.3644 at the London equities close Tuesday.
The euro stood at USD1.2038, up from USD1.2029. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY105.07, little changed from JPY105.05.
Brent oil was quoted at USD58.03 a barrel Wednesday morning, up from USD57.58 at the London market close Tuesday. Gold was trading at USD1,839.65 an ounce, a touch higher from USD1,837.20 late Tuesday.
In the economics calendar on Wednesday, there are French, German, eurozone and UK service PMI readings at 0850 GMT, 0855 GMT, 0900 GMT and 0930 GMT, respectively. In the afternoon, the US service PMI print is at 1445 GMT. Elsewhere, the eurozone consumer and producer price index is due at 1000 GMT.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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