AstraZeneca beat expectations for its Q1 revenue, helped by sales of some of its oncology as well as rare blood disorder drugs. They reported an adjusted profit of $1.92 per share on sales of around $10.9bn. Analysts on average were expecting $1.71 per share on sales of about $10.6bn.

Barclays reported a Q1 profit that exceeded expectations as a resilient performance from its consumer bank offset pressure on other key business lines. They reported a pretax profit of £2.6bn, above average analyst forecasts of £2.2bn and higher than the £2.2bn it reported in the same period a year ago.

GlaxoSmithKline receives positive opinion from EMA body for respiratory syncytial virus vaccine.

Howden Joinery is on track to meet expectations for 2023.

London Stock Exchange report Q1 2023 total income of £2.01bn, up from £1.75bn YoY. They reiterate guidance of 6-8% total income growth for 2023.

Sainsbury reported an expected 5% fall in FY profit and forecast the outcome for this year would be above analysts' consensus expectations. Their underlying pretax profit came in at £690m in the year to March 4th, at the top end of guidance but down from the £730m made in 2021/22. They have forecast a FY 2023/24 profit of between £640-700m, ahead of analysts' average forecast of £631m.

Taylor Wimpey state that buyer interest has risen over the past few months, helped by improvement in mortgage rates and sales rate. Net private sales rate for the year to April 23 was 0.75 units, up from 0.62 reported for the first eight weeks of 2023.

Unilever reported better than expected quarterly underlying sales as they raised prices to compensate for higher commodity and supply chain costs. They reported a 10.5% rise in underlying sales to £14.8bn euros, beating analysts' average forecast for a 7.2% increase.

Weir Group report Q1 orders +4%, OE orders +22% and AM order flat YoY as they state that mining market conditions are positive.

WPP have made a good start to the year as they reported an underlying rise in Q1 revenue less pass-through costs of 2.9%, which it said put it on course for FY targets. Total revenue came in at £3.46bn, +4.9% on a L-f-L basis.