Tobacco shares under pressure - Telegraph Philip Morris" downbeat outlook for the cigarette industry gave investors another reason to push shares in the London-listed tobacco companies lower. Excluding the US and China, the group forecast that cigarette volumes will decline by 2pc to 3pc next year, on top of a 3pc fall in 2013. European volumes are expected to fall between 7pc and 8pc in 2014 and Russian volumes will shrink as much as 11pc. Those estimates are more significant for Imperial, Panmure Gordon analysts said, "given its greater skew to Europe and exposure to low and mid-tier segments in Russia." It was a more subdued trading session for the wider FTSE 100, despite suggestions from the US Federal Reserve late on Wednesday that it may soon start to slow its $85bn-a-month quantitative easing programme, which has boosted the appeal of equities this year by pushing bond yields lower. While there was an initial knee-jerk reaction to the Fed news, with London's benchmark index sliding as low as 6,643.47 in morning trade, investors regained their composure and the blue-chip index stabilised to close up just 0.25 at 6,681.33. A bullish call from heavyweight broker Goldman Sachs helped to lift investor sentiment. The bank's strategists repeated their forecast that the FTSE 100 will hit 7,500 next year, with returns driven by company earnings growth. It's not the first time Goldman has made the prediction, having said in August that it expected the blue-chips to touch 7,500 in 12 month's time. Leading the FTSE 100 risers was speciality chemicals group Johnson Matthey, up 116p at £32.10, after posting a better-than-expected 13pc increase in adjusted pre-tax profits to £212.9m. QinetiQ, the technology group spun out from the Ministry of Defence, was another that was buoyed by its latest results announcement, finishing 14.3 higher at 211p in the FTSE 250. The company impressed by sticking to its full-year guidance, despite what it described as "challenging markets." Many of its peers have disappointed recently by sounding profit warnings. Analysts were behind other moves. William Hill rose 5½ to 365.1p, helped higher by Oriel Securities analyst Jeffrey Harwood. He said the bookmaker had been dragged lower by worries about the point of consumption tax on UK online gambling companies, to be introduced late next year, as well as concern about weak trading at Ladbrokes. However, Mr Harwood argued that "recent issues at Ladbrokes have been partly self-inflicted" and that the forthcoming tax only represents a "short-term hurdle." He concluded that "the recent [William Hill] share price weakness represents a buying opportunity." Meanwhile, Credit Suisse analysts pushed microchip designer Imagination Technologies 17.8 lower to 244.2p by voicing concerns about the threat posed by rival ARM Holdings, 9 higher at 964p. The latter company was in favour at HSBC, with analyst Christian Rath starting coverage of it with an "overweight" recommendation. ARM, he said, is "dominant in the mobile market" and will benefit from "the replacement of feature phones and the shift towards newer and more complex processor designs." Elsewhere, mining shares were on the back foot in the wake of weaker than expected manufacturing data from China, the world's biggest metals consumer: Vedanta Resources slid 28 to 923p and Rio Tinto lost 53½p to £32.46½. Among the small-caps, struggling nickel producer Talvivaara slumped 0.55, or 13.9pc, to 3.4p amid bankruptcy fears. The group said it had failed to secure the €40m (£33m) in funding needed to carry out a debt restructuring. But oil explorer Xcite Energy jumped 12¾ to 118p on speculation it might agree a partnership with Norwegian group Statoil. AstraZeneca in focus on deal talk Pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, up 92p at £34.00½, was in focus today on talk the FTSE 100 group could bid for Swiss biotechnology company Actelion. Analysts at Citigroup argued that Pascal Soriot, Astra's chief executive, is likely to look at M&A opportunities next year to "offset the impact" of generic competition. Actelion, they said, is an "intriguing potential target" for the British company and a deal could boost earnings by 12pc. The speculation sent shares in the Swiss group up 1.8pc, giving it a market cap of Sfr9.1bn (£6.2bn).