FTSE ends the week in the green

The FTSE 100 ended the week with positive results, emerging from a turbulant period of trading to begin what is known as “earnings season” on the right foot. Sentiment has been high since the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Ben Bernanke, confirmed that the US central bank were still some way off cutting their monetary stimulus package which is worth 85 billion dollars a month.

One of the few negatives on an otherwise fairly positive day of trading was the 5% decline of Reckitt Benckiser, producers of a drug used to help get drug users off of Heroin called Suboxone, which acts as a replacement for the Class A. Reckitt’s patent for Suboxone is due to expire in the relatively near future, so they have been trying to push doctors and other pharmaceutical vendors towards their film version of the drug, which is still under patent and will be for quite some time.

Unfortunately for Reckitt Benckiser, vendors have realised that there is very little difference between the film and tablet forms of the drug, and with the patent expiring for the tablet it is highly likely that it will be mass produced by many of their competitors, leading the firm to be undercut on their own product. With CVS CareMark today becoming to first major company to confirm that they will be dealing exclusively with the tablet form of the drug going forward, the companies earnings look like they could be about to take a big hit. The 5% decline equated to a 252p fall, closing at 4677p per share.

Lloyds closed 1.5p higher at 67.73p, leading the government owned high street banks in advances as the Royal Bank of Scotland advanced by 0.5p to close at 3.04p after a solid week of trading.

The FTSE 100 had a more fruitful day with a slight upward movement of 1.53 points, or 0.02%, to close at 6544.94, leaving London’s blue-chip index up by 170 points for the week.