Sector movers: Investors seek out safe havens across all asset classes

Commodity plays were again sought out at the end of the week after The Wall Street Journal said that an Iranian attack against Israel was thought to be imminent.

On the other hand, at the weekend the WSJ reported on a top Iranian official pushing back against public demands for a quick and hard response to Israel, whilst Washington was said to be moving naval assets nearer the region in the hope of forestalling a direct attack against Israel.

Gold futures ended lower by 0.53% at $2,360/oz. on Friday, but not before first moving into so-called 'overbought' territory after hitting a fresh record of $2,448/oz..

Front-dated Brent crude oil meanwhile added 0.52% to $90.21 a barrel on the ICE and reached a six-month high of $92.18 a barrel earlier in the session.

Investors may also have been seeking to cover their riskiest positions heading into the weekend.

At the individual company level, the result was outsized moves in the share prices of the likes of Fresnillo and BP, both of whose shares were also overbought or nearly there.

Precious metals and oil weren't the only safe havens sought out by investors.

The Greenback was also wanted with the US dollar index ending the day 0.69% higher at 106.01.

In a research note sent to clients, Derek Halpenny and Abdul-Ahad Lockhart at MUFG said there was scope for further dollar strength.

However, they still expected US data "to turn" such that the Federal Reserve would be able to start easing, possibly by July.

"So while the window for USD strength is open, we doubt it will remain open longer than a month or two," they said.

LME three-month futures for copper, aluminium, zinc and copper were all higher too, registering gains of 1.24%, 1.63%, 2.54% and 2.1%, respectively.

Copper futures saw the day out from $9,457.0 per metric tonne but climbed past $9,551 per tonne or 15-month highs at one point during the session.

Continuing with the safe haven theme, prices on longer-term government debt on either side of the Atlantic alco caught a bid, pushing bond yields lower.

That benefitted utilities' share prices, as did positive comments out of JP Morgan on National Grid and SSE.

Top performing sectors so far today

Precious Metals and Mining 11,093.93 +4.58%

Industrial Metals & Mining 6,877.71 +3.74%

Electricity 10,038.50 +3.54%

Oil, Gas and Coal 9,802.40 +3.05%

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 5,910.25 +2.27%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Personal Goods 16,681.09 -2.20%

Industrial Engineering 14,107.67 -1.53%

Travel & Leisure 7,616.16 -1.48%

Automobiles & Parts 1,242.77 -1.47%

Leisure Goods 24,780.48 -1.39%