Market Analysis

London's FTSE 100 fell on Wednesday, reflecting global market trends, as investors evaluated corporate updates and key players traded without dividend entitlements.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index dropped 0.9%, while the mid-cap FTSE 250 index declined 0.7% by 0714 GMT.

Despite a broad recovery that marked its best day in over four months on Tuesday, following Monday's steep sell-off, the benchmark index experienced a pullback.

Leading the declines were precious metal miners, which fell by 2% even as gold prices rose. The index was dragged down by Fresnillo, which traded without the right to its latest dividend payout.

Prominent companies such as AstraZeneca, BP, NatWest, and Standard Chartered also traded ex-dividend, contributing to a more than 1% decline among heavyweights.

Bank shares slipped 1.4% after two days of gains.

Overall, the index saw widespread declines across most sub-sectors.

In contrast, non-life insurers rose 2.5%, driven by a 10% surge in Beazley, which revised its combined ratio forecast for 2024 upwards after nearly doubling its first-half pre-tax profit to $728.9 million. Beazley was the top performer on the FTSE 100 index.

Paraphrasing text from "Reuters" all rights reserved by the original author.