LONDON, June 27, 2026, 20:25 BST
- Reckitt ended Friday at 4,931p, gaining 2.15%. The FTSE 100 slipped 0.21% for the day.
- The stock gained every day last week, climbing 6.9% since the June 19 close.
- Shares finished Friday 1.6% above the £48.55 average from Reckitt’s last buyback round.
- Reckitt is holding off on a new buyback update until its half-year results on July 29.
June 27 lands on a Saturday in London this year, which makes Friday’s closing price the last available for Reckitt Benckiser Group plc (LON:RKT).
Reckitt ended Friday at 4,931p, up 2.15%. The shares have now risen for five straight sessions, with a 6.9% jump for the week after starting at 4,614p on June 19. The FTSE 100 (INDEXFTSE:UKX) slipped 0.21% on Friday.
The key level for next week is 4,855p. That’s what Reckitt spent on average from March 9 to June 15 buying back 11.1 million ordinary shares in the last part of its £1 billion buyback. Shares finished Friday 76p above that.
The last tranche is now a bit in the money on a mark-to-market basis. That hasn’t fixed the bigger drawdown. Reckitt is still down 24.4% from the £65.23 52-week high seen on Jan. 9.
Reckitt shares bounced but volume stayed muted. From June 22 to June 26, 7.46 million shares swapped hands, just 13% above the 6.62 million shares traded on June 19. On Friday, volume hit 1.5 million, trailing the 50-day average of 2.2 million, according to MarketWatch.
That’s important as the next update on capital returns doesn’t come for another month. Reckitt said in its buyback completion note it plans to comment on any new buyback plans with its HY 2026 results. The company’s investor calendar puts the half-year presentation at 08:30 BST on July 29.
Reckitt shares slumped as much as 7% after missing first-quarter like-for-like revenue forecasts in April. The company posted 1.3% core growth while 2.9% was forecast in a company-compiled poll and warned first-half margins would be down about 200 basis points from a year earlier. The weak start to the year has weighed on the stock since.
Harsharan Mann, who leads the consumer sector hub at Aviva Investors and owns shares of Reckitt, said first-quarter growth was “broad-based muted growth.” JPMorgan’s Celine Pannuti said Reckitt’s outlook for emerging markets in the second quarter fell short and raised questions about hitting full-year goals. Reuters
Reckitt is sticking with its story. “We maintain our LFL net revenue guidance for 2026,” Chief Executive Kris Licht said in April. Core growth, taking out seasonal over-the-counter products, was 3.1%. The company pointed to high-single-digit growth in emerging markets for the lift. Reckitt
Mead Johnson is still on investors’ radar. Reuters said on June 23 that almost 1,000 lawsuits of this type have hit Mead Johnson, which is owned by Reckitt, and Abbott Laboratories NYSE:ABT. Over 700 of those cases are in an Illinois federal court. Earlier this month, an Illinois appeals court tossed out a $60 million judgment against Mead Johnson.
RKT faces two straightforward price levels to watch next week: 4,855p, the average price from the completed buyback, and 4,956p, which was the high on Friday. There isn’t another Reckitt earnings report due before July 29.
