Insurers and High Street banks pace gains amid pound strength

The leaderboard for London´s top flight index on Tuesday was a who´s-how of the City´s top insurers and the main High Street banking groups as the latest EU referendum poll results appeared to show that voters were shifting in favour of the 'Remain' camp.

Following a now familiar pattern on the day´s when the pound strengthens in reaction to any slip in the odds of the UK leaving the European Union after the 23 June bote, shares in grocers and homebuilders also figures prominently among the day´s top gainers.

The results of the latest ORB poll conducted on behalf of the Daily Telegraph and release early on Tuesday morning revealed a large shift among Tory voters in favour of the 'Remain' camp.

A large majority of 57% of Conservative voters were now saying they would support a vote to 'Remain', versus the 40% who would rather the UK 'Leave'.

Another ORB poll undertaken in March had put support for 'Remain' at just 34% while 60% had said they would vote to 'Leave'.

Shares in Old Mutual, Legal&General, RBS, St.James´s Place, Barclays and Lloyds were all higher.

Old Mutual also got a boost after confirming reports that it had received approaches to acquire its 66% stake in OM Asset Management, while Teso received a positive endorsement from analysts at Bernstein.

Banks were also putting in a strong performance Stateside, with the KBW Bank index rising 1.75% to 69.83. At the pan-European level, the DJ Stoxx 600 bank sector index finished 3.62% higher on the day at 150.96. Insurers on the DJ Stoxx 600 fared even better, notching up a rise of 3.94% to 252.18.

On 23 May, strategists at JP Morgan had suggested to clients that a tactical 'long' position in banks might be a good option.

Acting as a backdrop, in testimony before the Treasury Select Committee Bank of England governor Mark Carney responded to criticism from some corners that the central bank had 'picked a side' in the Brexit debate.

“We have not supported a side in the campaign,” Carney told MP Jacob Rees-Mogg, who earlier in May had called for the Governor to be canned.

“The only side we’ve supported is the pursuit of low, stable and predictable inflation, which is our remit.”

“[It] may be inconvenient for you. But by our actions, and comment, we have made it more likely that we’ll bring inflation back to target, whatever the outcome of the referendum, sooner and more sustainably.”

Top performing sectors so far today
Life Insurance 7,072.71 +4.52%
Food & Drug Retailers 2,754.49 +4.04%
Banks 3,307.37 +2.44%
Fixed Line Telecommunications 5,098.68 +1.89%
Tobacco 50,082.38 +1.84%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 13,147.81 -0.49%
Chemicals 10,760.84 -0.29%
Oil & Gas Producers 6,092.71 -0.17%
Industrial Metals & Mining 1,202.53 -0.16%
Industrial Engineering 8,250.56 -0.05%