Sector movers: Few flops as feelgood factor reigns
Amid the wider feelgood factor in the market, most of London's blue chips were on the up on Friday, but the general retail sector stood out for its sea of green numbers, while media was the day's main underperformer.
Of the heavyweight sectors, industrial metals miners were slightly higher while gold miners were down; oilers were mostly in the green apart from BP; banks were also generally on the front foot apart from Barclays and Lloyds; utilities were also higher apart from Centrica; pharmaceuticals were all higher apart from Indivior; aerospace and defence was held back by a second day's decline for Rolls-Royce.
Technology hardware and forestry & paper are currently single-company sectors when just focusing on the FTSE 350, while oil services companies were on the up as oil prices firmed. This was on the back of OPEC output dropping to a four year low, according to Reuters.
That retailers were all higher perhaps indicated that this domestically focused sector reflected optimism about some sort of Brexit compromise being reached.
In media it was clear cut, RELX shares fell after the University of California cancelled its subscriptions with the company's Elsevier academic journals arm.
Rightmove was down despite full year results being in line with expectations, with customer numbers as predicted and a strong performance from new homes. Management were cautiously optimistic, saying it remains "vigilant" to the macro environment, but that it is not materially impacted by the property market cycle except in the most extreme circumstances.
Top performing sectors so far today
Technology Hardware & Equipment +5.21%
Forestry & Paper +2.83%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution +2.81%
Tobacco +2.66%
General Retailers +2.23%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Media -1.81%
Aerospace and Defence -0.95%
Automobiles & Parts -0.22%
Personal Goods -0.22%
Gas, Water & Multiutilities -0.11
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,120.71 0.65%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,359.37 0.93%
techMARK (TASX) 3,481.64 0.77%
FTSE 100 - Risers
WPP (WPP) 884.48p 7.11%
ITV (ITV) 136.20p 3.89%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 4,667.00p 3.55%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,847.50p 3.23%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,266.00p 3.14%
Wood Group (John) (WG.) 536.60p 3.11%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,780.00p 2.98%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,944.00p 2.88%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 525.20p 2.78%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 178.45p 2.62%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Relx plc (REL) 1,625.00p -6.02%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 923.20p -3.33%
Rightmove (RMV) 466.95p -3.14%
Fresnillo (FRES) 835.80p -2.81%
Centrica (CNA) 123.55p -0.76%
SEGRO (SGRO) 656.60p -0.67%
Unilever (ULVR) 3,984.00p -0.60%
Barclays (BARC) 163.24p -0.56%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 63.35p -0.30%
British Land Company (BLND) 602.80p -0.23%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) 363.90p 7.44%
Just Group (JUST) 108.50p 5.24%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 489.50p 5.11%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 157.40p 5.07%
Vivo Energy (VVO) 133.00p 4.48%
Essentra (ESNT) 393.40p 4.41%
Galliford Try (GFRD) 772.00p 4.39%
Morgan Advanced Materials (MGAM) 268.20p 3.95%
Electrocomponents (ECM) 575.40p 3.90%
Sophos Group (SOPH) 340.00p 3.72%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Coats Group (COA) 79.70p -10.05%
Indivior (INDV) 103.45p -3.68%
Man Group (EMG) 133.75p -3.18%
Hochschild Mining (HOC) 193.05p -2.70%
William Hill (WMH) 182.90p -2.48%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 213.01p -1.48%
Ascential (ASCL) 363.40p -1.20%
Millennium & Copthorne Hotels (MLC) 465.00p -1.17%
Meggitt (MGGT) 533.20p -1.11%
Howden Joinery Group (HWDN) 487.40p -1.08%