Investment Banking and Brokerage Services pace gains

If it was banks that paced gains the day before, on Wednesday market leadership went to investment banking and broker names.

LSE Group, Schroders and asset manager St.James's Place were all higher, alongside gains for the likes of Atlas Mara, Bridgepoint, Hargreaves Lansdown, Intermediate Capital Group and IG Group.

Boosting shares of the former was an upgrade out of analysts at UBS to 'buy' on valuation grounds, which they said offered an attractive entry point for a business that could grow its topline by around 5% per year and was positively geared to interest rate and FX volatility.

It was also a broker upgrade that lay behind gains for Schroders as Credit Suisse upgraded the shares to 'outperform'.

For asset managers generally, UBS believed that it was too soon to buy the sell-off, despite the "deep discount" on offer in valuations.

In the case of Schroders however there were reasons to be more bullish they said.

"Diversified AuM, in particular strength in Solutions and Private Assets, offer fund flow stability in difficult markets.

"We see the upcoming enfranchisement of non-voting shares as explicitly value creative (removing non-voting and trading illiquidity discount), as well as technically positive (increased index weighting, facilitation of share buybacks)."

Rates and FX markets had certainly seen their fair share of volatility over recent sessions.

Top performing sectors so far today

Investment Banking and Brokerage Services 11,500.80 +4.56%

Industrial Transportation 2,949.33 +3.33%

Food Producers 6,082.70 +3.15%

Personal Goods 27,270.29 +3.06%

Retailers 3,012.07 +2.81%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Oil, Gas and Coal 7,774.14 -1.60%

Automobiles & Parts 1,839.00 -0.72%

Aerospace and Defence 4,716.73 -0.42%

Alternative Energy 0.00 0.00%

Alternative Investment Instruments NULL 0.00%