FTSE 100 retreats from nine-week high after weak company results

* FTSE 100 falls 0.4 percent

* Barclays (LSE: BARC.L - news) slips after Q1 profits drop 5 percent

* Aberdeen Asset Management (Other OTC: ABDNF - news) down after results

* Drugmakers retreat as imminent M&A hopes recede

* Housebuilders recover, helped by Countrywide (LSE: CWD.L - news) update

By Tricia Wright

LONDON, May 6 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index

retreated from a nine-week high on Tuesday, knocked by weak

results from Barclays and Aberdeen Asset Management

, while falls in drugmakers also took their toll on the

market.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 index was down 24.15 points,

or 0.4 percent, at 6,798.27 points by 1450 GMT, after hitting

6,838.17 on Friday, its highest level since late February. The

market was closed on Monday for a public holiday.

Barclays shed 5.2 percent, the top FTSE 100 faller,

after it said a collapse in investment bank revenue had hit

first-quarter profit and was still hurting income in April. That

threw a spotlight onto an overhaul of the flagging business due

to be unveiled by the British bank on Thursday.

Investment manager Aberdeen Asset Management dropped 2.4

percent on a forecast-lagging 3-percent fall in pretax profit

after clients pulled money out of its core emerging market and

Asian equity funds.

"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."

The pharmaceutical sector was the second biggest drag on the

FTSE 100 - behind banks - after investors who had bet that

Pfizer (NYSE: PFE - news) would step up its efforts to seal a takeover of

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN - news) were disappointed, traders said.

AstraZeneca has rebuffed three approaches from Pfizer. It

said on Friday that the U.S. firm's latest offer of 50 pounds a

share undervalued the company "substantially".

"I think there's a perception that the markets have priced

Pfizer getting in and doing the deal, and it's probably going to

take a little bit longer than investors had anticipated. So

you've got a little bit of profit-taking in AstraZeneca's

shares," CMC Markets senior market analyst Michael Hewson said.

AstraZeneca, up some 25 percent since mid-April on

expectations of a Pfizer deal alongside a burst of other pharma

deal-making, fell 2.7 percent at 4,676 pence. Shire (LSE: SHP.L - news) , which has

risen almost 20 percent over the period, slipped 3.3 percent.

BUILDERS BUOYANT

Housebuilders limited market losses, reversing recent falls,

with traders citing a bullish trading update from Countrywide

, Britain's largest estate agency.

The Thomson Reuters UK Homebuilding index

has fallen more than 10 percent from a late February peak,

trimming its gains for 2014 to around 3 percent.

It doubled in value during the past three years, underpinned

by tight supply and UK initiatives to spur the job-intensive

sector, such as the 'Help-to-Buy' mortgage scheme.

Barclays said the recent selloff had left attractive

valuations.

"We see strong fundamentals: greater visibility provided by

the extension to the 'Help-to-Buy' scheme; a largely disciplined

land market; and a more supportive planning system," Barclays (Berlin: BCY.BE - news)

said in a note.

"Where headwinds exist, notably the threat of rising

interest rates, they remain relatively benign in our view."

Persimmon (Frankfurt: OHP.F - news) topped the FTSE 100 leader board, up 3.5

percent at 1,374 pence as Barclays lifted its target price for

the stock to 1,540 pence from 1,333.6 pence. Blue-chip peer

Barratt Developments (LSE: BDEV.L - news) rose 1.7 percent, and mid-cap

Taylor Wimpey (LSE: TW.L - news) climbed 1.6 percent.

(Additional reporting by Atul Prakash; Editing by Catherine

Evans)