By Atul Prakash
LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 retreated from a nine-week high on Tuesday, dragged down by weak results from companies including Barclays (L:BARC) and Aberdeen Asset Management
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index L:FTSE was down 0.2 percent at 6,807.81 points by 0808 GMT after hitting 6,838.17 on Friday, the highest since late February. The market was closed on Monday for a public holiday.
Investment manager Aberdeen Asset Management fell 4.9 percent, to be the top FTSE 100 decliner, on a forecast-lagging 3-percent fall in interim pretax profit after clients pulled money out of its core emerging market and Asian equity funds. [ID:nL6N0NS1JJ]
"Reporting seasons are now more important than they have been for many years because the market is at a valuation level where some earnings growth is priced in. When they miss earnings, it does matter to the market now," Macquarie strategist Daniel McCormack said.
"On a 12- to 18-month view, there is plenty of upside left in the market because earnings will start to improve, but I struggle to see a near-term positive catalyst for the market to push materially higher."
Barclays fell 4 percent after saying its profits fell 5 percent in the first quarter as revenues fell in its fixed income business more steeply than at most rivals. [ID:nL6N0NS1GI]
The UK banking index L:FTNMX8350 fell 0.8 percent, led lower by Barclays, which also said it will announce on Thursday details of a plan to shrink its investment bank.
"The outcome of the quarter is largely a continuation of the themes outlined at the full year numbers, with Thursday’s strategy announcement likely to be rather more consequential," Hargreaves Lansdown Stockbrokers head of equities Richard Hunter said in a note.
"Inevitably there is likely to be some volatility up to and including Thursday’s announcement ... Nonetheless, if some of the rumoured changes are implemented, resulting in a more streamlined and obviously profitable bank, the recent upgrade of the market consensus to a buy will have been vindicated."
Miners also lost ground, with Rio Tinto (L:RIO), BHP Billiton (L:BLT) and Anglo American (L:AAL) down 1.7 percent to 2 percent on demand concerns, especially in China.
Geopolitical tension also weighed on the broader market. More than 30 pro-Russian separatists were killed in fighting near the rebel stronghold of Slaviansk in eastern Ukraine, Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said on Tuesday. [ID:nL6N0NS1EA]
(Editing by Louise Ireland)