Sector movers: Miners, Big Oil and pharma lead gains

Commodity-related stocks paced gains on Tuesday following the release of figures overnight showing that China's foreign exchange reserves didn't jump last month.

According to the People's Bank of China, the country's foreign exchange reserves had edged higher by just $6.0bn in June to reach $3.118trn.

That, Jasper Lawler at LCG said, suggested China was "neither starting or stopping a currency war", with the first bit at least, in itself arguably a 'positive' for markets, growth prospects for the Asian giant and by extension for miners too.

In fact, the figures came close on the heels of Beijing's move last Friday to stem weakness in the country's currency, the yuan, by raising the cost for speculators to 'short' it.

Meanwhile, the country's Politburo had announced measures to help prop-up growth in the short-term. Together with strong corporate earnings in the second quarter that was helping to offset trade concerns, JP Morgan strategists had said on Monday.

Indeed, and as analysts at Capital Economics pointed out, highlighting the relative movements between the yuan's value on and offshore, it appeared that capital outflows had picked-up going into August, which would likely prompt Beijing to intervene more forcefully.

Shares in the oil patch were also wanted on Tuesday, amid big gains for the majors, particularly BP.

Contrary to the trend evident in the broader sector, the company's cash breakevens were continuing to trend in the right direction, retreating from $64 per barrel in the first half 2017 to $54 a barrel this time around, also according to JP Morgan.

"Led by solid upstream execution and better than expected capital efficiency as capex in 2018 is guided lower to $15bn. As highlighted in our analysis of the BHP US onshore acquisition advanced L-48 know-how drives a positive risk/reward in an industrial/fiscal context," the investment bank's analysts told clients.

In Pharma, it was Astra Zeneca that did best, as analysts at BMO reiterated the shares as their 'top pick' in the sector with a $45.0 target on the company's ADRs.

"CFO's commentary during investor meetings last week suggest AZ could be on the verge of the steepest growth trajectory in major Biopharma. CFO indicated revenue of ~$40-41Bn in 2023 was still a possibility (BMO and Street at $35-36Bn), and identified several underappreciated opportunities (e.g., Roxadustat)."

Top performing sectors so far today

Mining 18,164.69 +3.12%

Industrial Metals & Mining 4,941.69 +2.13%

Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 14,182.75 +2.04%

Oil & Gas Producers 9,644.32 +1.63%

Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 14,944.76 +1.37%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Automobiles & Parts 10,110.01 -0.79%

Industrial Engineering 13,372.30 -0.78%

Support Services 8,318.24 -0.59%

Chemicals 16,735.60 -0.50%

Industrial Transportation 3,116.50 -0.25%