UK Shares Gain With Focus on Corporate Updates

UK shares gain with focus on corporate updates

(Reuters) -UK's main stock indexes ended higher on Tuesday as investors assessed a mixed bag of company news, including a report that AstraZeneca's CEO is considering moving the company's listing to the U.S.

The internationally oriented FTSE 100 rose 0.28%, while the domestically-focussed midcap index added 0.54%. Midcap stocks ended June by logging their best quarter in over four years while the blue-chip index logged monthly losses.

Drugmaker AstraZeneca's shares rose 2.7% after multiple sources told The Times that CEO Pascal Soriot was considering moving the company's listing to the U.S.

Investors also analysed latest comments from Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey for cues on interest rate path. Bailey said rising uncertainty in the global economy had hurt economic growth and investment intentions, while highlighting Britain's softening labour market.

Traders are currently pricing in a 78% chance of a rate cut by the BoE in August.

Precious metal mining stocks led sectoral gains, rising 2.4% as safe-haven gold jumped over 1% on weaker dollar and U.S. tariff uncertainty.

Endeavour Mining and Fresnillo added 2.8% and 1%, respectively. Hochschild Mining gained 5.3%.

Meanwhile, losses were led by aerospace and defense index, which declined 2.2%. Rolls-Royce fell 2.9% and Babcock lost 2.5%.

On the data front, S&P's manufacturing PMI figures showed that the sector improved for the third month in a row, but remained below the growth threshold as businesses increased prices to offset higher labour costs.

Among individual stocks, food retailer Sainsbury's shares slid 1.1% despite reporting a higher-than-expected rise in quarterly sales.

Standard Chartered Bank shares fell 2% after liquidators for Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund 1MDB sued the bank in Singapore alleging fraud that led to more than $2.7 billion in losses more than 10 years ago.

In other news, Britain's competition watchdog cleared Aviva's 3.7-billion-pound ($5.08 billion) takeover of smaller rival Direct Line that will create the UK's largest home and motor insurer. Shares of Aviva were up 0.8%, while those of Direct Line rose 0.5%.

(Reporting by Twesha Dikshit and Ankita Yadav; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)