FTSE 100 Modestly Higher; Hiscox Soars 9%

(RTTNews) - U.K. stocks are turning in a mixed performance on Wednesday with investors digesting corporate earnings announcements, and continuing to assess the economic impact of the Trump administration's tariffs that are set to become effective this week.

Investors are also awaiting the Bank of England's monetary policy announcement due on Thursday.

The benchmark FTSE 100 is up 22.62 points or 0.25% at 9,165.35 a little before noon.

Hiscox is rising nearly 9% after announcing an increase to its share buyback programme. The company has increased its maximum aggregate consideration from $175 million to $275 million to return additional capital to shareholders.

Fresnillo is gaining 4.7% and Diageo is up nearly 3%. Beazley is advancing 2.75%.

Anglo American Plc, BP, Ashtead Group, Shell, Centrica, Kingfisher, Mondi, ICG, Rolls-Royce Holdings, Whitbread, IMI, Rentokil Initial, Airtel Africa, Antofagasta, Barclays and HSBC Holdings are up 1 to 2.5%.

Coca-Cola Europacific Partners is plunging more than 11% after the company trimmed its fiscal 2025 revenue forecast, despite reporting higher first-half results. The outlook revision mainly reflects a weaker consumer backdrop in Indonesia.

For fiscal 2025, the company now expects revenues to grow around 3% to 4% on an adjusted comparable & FX-neutral basis, while previous outlook was a growth of around 4%. The company continues to expect annual operating profit growth of around 7%.

In the first half, profit before taxes grew to 1.26 billion euros from last year's 1.05 billion euros. Earnings per share were 1.99 euros, higher than last year's 1.73 euros.

Coca-Cola HBC is declining 8.4%, despite higher earnings, and reiterating full-year guidance.

Glencore is down 4.1%, weighed down by a 14% drop in first half adjusted core profit and scrapping plans to move its primary listing away from London.

Legal & General Group shares are down 2.7% despite the company reporting stronger-than-expected first-half results.

Relx, Marks & Spence, IAG, Next and Sainsbury (J) are down 1 to 2%.

In economic news, the UK construction sector downturn deepened in July as volumes of work carried out across all sectors decreased markedly, survey results from S&P Global showed.

The headline construction Purchasing Managers' Index fell to 44.3 in July from 48.8 in June. The score signaled the sharpest contraction since May 2020.

The survey revealed marked decreases in activity across monitored sub-sectors, but a considerable drag came from a fresh drop in residential building.