Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 24, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 20, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleFTSE 100 dips 0.2% in a quiet Christmas Eve session. AstraZeneca and GSK shares fall, while BP progresses with its divestment plan.
Dec 24 (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 closed lower in quiet trading on Wednesday, as investors wound down some positions in pharma heavyweights AstraZeneca and GSK in a truncated Christmas Eve session.
The UK's blue-chip FTSE 100 closed down 0.2%, moving sideways since hitting a five-week high last week following the Bank of England’s 25-basis-point rate cut.
AstraZeneca and GSK dropped about 0.5% each.
The domestically focussed midcap FTSE 250 index was down 0.07%, but still managed to notch its second straight weekly gain.
Trading volumes remained thin heading into the holidays, as many markets are either shut or operating on reduced hours on Christmas Eve.
London’s stock market will remain closed on Thursday and Friday for Christmas and Boxing Day holidays.
Oil major BP agreed to sell a 65% stake in its Castrol lubricants business to U.S. investment firm Stonepeak for about $6 billion, a significant step in the oil major's $20 billion divestment plan aimed at cutting debt and boosting returns. Its shares were down 0.4%.
The FTSE 100 index is set to close out a fifth straight year of gains, with a 20.7% advance that has outperformed European and U.S. benchmarks, fuelled by miners, financials and defence shares.
(Reporting by Tharuniyaa Lakshmi in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Sahal Muhammed)
The FTSE 100 is a stock market index that represents the 100 largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, based on market capitalization.
A stock market index is a measurement of a section of the stock market, calculated from the prices of selected stocks, used to represent the performance of the market.
Trading volume refers to the total number of shares or contracts traded for a specific security or market during a given period.
A divestment is the process of selling off subsidiary business interests or investments, often to reduce debt or raise capital.
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