Market report: Smith & Nephew wounded by slow sales of prosthetics in China and Gulf

Knee and hip replacement firm Smith & Nephew was looking a little worse for wear on the market today after revealing that growth ground to a halt last year.

Revenues edged up 1% to $4.7 billion, but this was less than the wound care firm had expected. The fourth quarter was particularly tough as revenues slipped 3% to £1.2 billion.

The company, which has long been viewed as a takeover target, blamed challenging markets in China and the Gulf states for the poor sales, raising questions about whether it has targeted the right growth markets.

“Whilst we still delivered growth in 2016 it was not at the level we had wanted,” chief executive Olivier Bohuon said.

The admission sparked panic among investors, who dumped the shares. They fell 52p, or 4.3%, to 1149p.

Smith & Nephew’s slide came on a day when the FTSE 100 rose 5.05 points to 7193.87, but the gains were limited, as they have been for the past few weeks.

“Investors are becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility of Eurosceptic parties gaining ground across Europe,” said David Morrison, senior market strategist at spreadbetting firm Spreadco, referring to the pending French and Dutch elections.

Healthier oil prices kept the blue-chip index in the black, but a slide of miners — Anglo American tumbled 46.5p to 1284.5p — restricted any big moves.

Shares in fund supermarket Hargreaves Lansdown clawed back 12p at 1376p after yesterday’s first-half results. The recovery was aided by a couple of target price upgrades from heavyweight brokers as HSBC and Barclays both hoisted their expectations for the share price.

There were more bad omens for Pearson, which is still on the City’s naughty step after the education group’s profit warning last month. Liberum pointed out that its US peer Cengage Learning issued a weak trading update, which could spell more bad news for the FTSE 100 company.