By Dec 2 (Reuters) – London-listed shares were muted on Wednesday as fears about a no-deal Brexit overshadowed news that the UK had become the world’s first country to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 was flat and the mid-cap FTSE 250 down 0.4% even as the government said the vaccine would be rolled out from early next week.
The FTSE 100 had rallied more than 12% in November, marking its best month in 31 years, on optimism that a COVID-19 vaccine would soon be available.
Investor attention this week has squarely been on Brexit negotiations with only weeks left for Britain’s transition agreement to expire.
A senior British minister said there was still a chance of no-deal Brexit as talks had snagged on fishing, governance rules and dispute resolution.
In company news, security group G4S jumped 7% after Canada’s GardaWorld raised its offer for the British company, valuing it at 3.68 billion pounds
($4.94 billion).
(Reporting by Shivani Kumaresan in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu)
Source: Reuters
