Sector movers: Aerospace and Electricity lead on broker talk

It was a quiet day for stocks due to the Thanksgiving Day holiday Stateside with the main price moves to the upside being the result of broker talk.

Chief among those was an upwards target price revision for BAE Systems out of JP Morgan from 1,150.0p to 1,300.0p.

The analysts said that they had come away incrementally positive from the engineer's chief executive officer and finance director's presentation at its UK Leaders Conference.

"BAE faces a decade of growth and visibility. It has strong FCF, which should mean it continues to pay an attractive dividend and buy back stock every year (which we assume in our forecast through to 2027)," they said in a research note sent to clients.

"We also believe that BAE has a far lower risk profile today than in the past."

Electricity stocks were helped by positive comments from RBC analysts on SSE.

Oil stocks meanwhile rebounded from the previous day's losses, helping prop up the main market indices.

Going the other way, Telecom Service Providers were at the bottom of the pile, dragged lower by Vodafone, whose shares went ex-dividend.

Gas, Water & Multiutilities and REITs were also down, as a better-than-expected reading for S&P Global's composite UK purchasing managers' index triggered a move higher in longer-term Gilt yields.

The consultancy said that the Composite PMI rose from 48.7 in October to 50.1 for November, indicating an unexpected stabilisation in UK private sector output.

That pushed the yield on the benchmark 10-year Gilt up by 10 basis points to 4.256%.

Top performing sectors so far today

Industrial Transportation 3,528.51 +1.63%

Oil, Gas and Coal 8,635.54 +1.31%

Aerospace and Defence 7,784.83 +1.12%

Electricity 10,654.15 +0.95%

Industrial Engineering 13,042.44 +0.93%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Telecommunications Service Providers 1,920.08 -3.15%

Travel & Leisure 6,719.96 -1.82%

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,031.88 -1.38%

Personal Care, Drug and Grocery Stores 3,928.94 -0.78%

Real Estate Investment Trusts 2,193.76 -0.75%