Dour earnings drag London stocks; St. James's Place plunges on annual loss

UK shares fell on Wednesday dragged by a raft of dismal earnings updates, including from Reckitt and St. James's Place, while investors also remained cautious ahead of key inflation numbers from the U.S. and Europe this week. St. James's Place slumped 31.9% to an 11-year low after the wealth manager swung to an annual loss, hit by a 426 million pound ($538.98 million) provision made for potential client refunds over historic ongoing servicing complaints.

UK shares fell on Wednesday dragged by a raft of dismal earnings updates, including from Reckitt and St. James's Place, while investors also remained cautious ahead of key inflation numbers from the U.S. and Europe this week.

St. James's Place slumped 31.9% to an 11-year low after the wealth manager swung to an annual loss, hit by a 426 million pound ($538.98 million) provision made for potential client refunds over historic ongoing servicing complaints. Reckitt lost 9.0%, becoming the biggest drag on the blue-chip FTSE 100 index, after the consumer goods group missed fourth-quarter like-for-like net sales estimates, citing declining sales of cold and flu season products.

"It was a year when price hikes did all the work, with (Reckitt) volumes taking a hit in the process," Hargreaves Lansdown equity analyst Matt Britzman said. "The real question is around when volumes will start to turn positive, as cost cuts can only support margin growth for so long."

The FTSE 100 fell 0.3% while the mid-cap FTSE 250 index shed 0.5%, as of 0907 GMT. Among other stocks, Taylor Wimpey slipped 3.5% after the homebuilder said it would build fewer homes this year and posted a 49% slump in annual profit.

Aston Martin reversed earlier gains on halving annual losses to fall 3.4%, with the luxury carmaker pushing back plans to launch its first battery electric vehicle by a year. Vodafone shares jumped 3.1%, as the telecom giant said it was in exclusive talks with Swisscom to sell all of Vodafone Italia for 8 billion euros ($8.7 billion).

Investors are now awaiting the consumer prices data from the U.S. and Europe this week for insights into the central banks' monetary policy path. Later in the day, comments from Bank of England policymaker Catherine Mann are also awaited.