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Drugs giant AstraZeneca was showing the rest of the top 100 companies a clean pair of heels today, spurred on by recommendations from two of the City's biggest players.
Shares in the Anglo-Swedish group posted a rise of 46½p at 2886½p, having touched 2926p, after Goldman Sachs repeated its neutral rating, but did some catching up by raising its target from 2800p to 3000p. UBS has a buy rating on AZ and believes there is still scope for improvement in the shares by raising its target from 3500p to 3600p.
The group also whetted the City's appetite by claiming its new blood thinner pill Bilinta is an improvement on the current market leader Plavix, which is jointly marketed by Sanofi-Aventis and Bristol-Myers Squibb. Plavix is the second-biggest selling drug in the world in a marketplace reckoned to be worth $9 billion (£5.5 billion) a year.
AZ says the advantage Bilinta has over its rivals is that it can be reversed, allowing heart patients to be operated on quicker with less risk of bleeding. Citigroup has raised its forecast on sales of Bilinta from $610 million to $884 million by 2014. Rival GlaxoSmithKline also firmed 15p to 1218p, but SkyPharma fell 14p to 101½p. The US Food & Drug Administration says it has to do more testing on its asthma treatment Flutiform and this could delay approval until the second half of 2011.
Elsewhere, leading shares traded above their worst levels of the session encouraged by an opening rally on Wall Street this afternoon where investors warmed to the latest numbers from the Institute of Supply Management. The FTSE 100 fell 26.11 to 4882.79 having briefly touched 4831, while in New York the Dow Jones rose 14.2 to 9510.4. Miners suffered some of the worst falls: Eurasian Natural Resources fell 35p to 830p, Vedanta shed 52p at 1740p and Anglo American 48p at 1973p.
Falls among second liners were steep as highlighted by the FTSE 250 index which fell 117.6 to 8699.8.
Insurer RSA Insurance Group was among the biggest blue-chip fallers, shedding 4p at 125.9p. Weekend reports claimed the group is looking to tap shareholders for up to a billion pounds by way of a rights issue. It wants the extra money to help strengthen its balance sheet. JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch have been appointed to put together the fund raiser.
The future remains grim for the UK commercial property sector despite the strong rally in shares of leading developers since hitting a low point back in March.
According to US investment bank JP Morgan, the big property developers continue to stagger under high levels of debt with shareholders facing the prospect of being asked to dig deep for extra cash to help strengthen weakened balance sheets.
The UK property sector has risen 82% since March. That is its biggest rally in 34 years and analysis of 14 rallies since 1966 suggest there is still scope for improvement in the months ahead. JPM is not so sure, however, and estimates the sector is already 14% overvalued.
The bank is convinced it could be all downhill from here on in with our own domestic market looking particularly vulnerable. Property values have risen 20% on the year to date, but improvements in rental income are being offset by the cost of huge debts.
Top of JPM's hit list is Derwent London, 2p lower at 1149p, Liberty International, down 8p at 516p, and Segro, 12.6p cheaper at 347.3p, all of which are rated underweight.
Morgan Stanley has moved to catch up with events in the property sector after the recent rally. It raised its targets for Land Securities, 4½p better at 622p, from 260p to 560p, Segro from 170p to 330p, British Land, down 7p at 477.7p, from 195p to 370p, and Liberty International from 195p to 400p.
New issues have been about as rare as hairs on my head of late. But NewRiver Retail, specialist in commercial property investment and asset management, has taken its bow on AIM following a placing of 10 million shares at 250p each. The placing has raised £25 million and the shares started trading at 255p.
Mirabaud has raised its risked valuation on Kalahari Minerals, 3p cheaper at 178¼p, from 180p to 215p, and says the shares, which are still rated a buy, offer cheap exposure to the Rossing South project.
