Smith & Nephew leads FTSE fallers on share placing talk

Smith and Nephew is leading the FTSE 100 fallers at the moment on market talk of a share placing going on. Traders heard that Citigroup was placing 8m shares in the medical equipment company, apparently at 559p, and this has sent it down 25p to 562p. It has also been hit by news from US rival Stryker of sluggish sales of hip and knee devices. But overall the market remains buoyant, with the Bank of England minutes having little impact on equities, showing the monetary policy committee voted 7 to 1 to leave rates on hold. So the FTSE 100 has climbed 80 points to 5219.46. Among the other fallers Capita is down 4p to 714p on continuing worries about the effects of the government's spending cuts on companies working on public sector contracts.