Sector movers: Personal Goods, Travel and Leisure stocks pace gains

Stocks moved higher on Thursday, lifted by its decision to end a ban on overseas group travel.

The announcement provided a boost for luxury stocks around the globe, Burberrys included.

It also helped to offset the drag of blue chip names on London's top-flight index going ex-dividend, including the likes of AstraZeneca, Rio Tinto, Shell, NatWest, Barclays, BP, and HSBC.

Worth noting too, Thursday's gains came despite strength in Sterling after US consumer price data again came in a tad shy of market forecasts.

The annual rate of increase in U.S. headline CPI picked up by two tenths of a percentage point versus June to reach 3.2% (consensus: 3.3%).

At the core level meanwhile CPI dipped from 4.8% to 4.7% (consensus: 4.8%).

Commenting on the latest U.S. CPI numbers, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics said: "The August core CPI print—published one week before the next Fed meeting on September 20—also will be a close call between 0.1% and 0.2%.

"Three decent core CPI prints is not definitive, but we think it will be enough to dissuade the Fed from another hike, unless the August payroll report, due on September 1, is really ugly."

Top performing sectors so far today

Personal Goods 32,066.87 +3.43%

Life Insurance 6,458.55 +1.91%

Chemicals 10,187.15 +1.76%

Beverages 26,279.46 +1.66%

Travel & Leisure 7,708.61 +1.63%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Industrial Engineering 14,220.68 -1.42%

Aerospace and Defence 7,254.76 -0.69%

Industrial Transportation 4,113.13 -0.54%

Real Estate Investment & Services 2,283.22 -0.50%

Industrial Metals & Mining 6,316.78 -0.42%