Sector movers: Retailers, telecoms pace gains

Retailers paced gains on the stock market on Tuesday, led by advances for names with a digital exposure including Asos, Boohoo and Next.

Helping to lift sentiment towards the group was a report in the The Times that the Agnelli family's new fund, Lingotto, had taken its stake in Ocado past the 5% treshold.

Vodafone helped lift Telecoms services provider to the second spot on the top-flight index, even as a downgrade to 'sell' of BT out of UBS sent that company's shares to the bottom of the pile.

Electricity and Real Estate services also did well, despite rising longer-term Gilt yields.

Aston Martin on the other hand gave back the previous day's gains against the backdrop of its Capital Markets Day.

Commenting on the carmaker's strategic supply agreement with Lucid announced the day before, analysts at Jefferies said: "The Lucid transaction should reduce future capital needs, but further shrinks free float to c.30% and continues to make AML an assembler of outside technology."

Big Oil also slipped with some analysts in the City citing the prospect of higher interest rates in multiple jurisdictions.

Top performing sectors so far today

Retailers 3,873.41 +1.70%

Telecommunications Service Providers 1,962.92 +1.34%

Travel & Leisure 7,494.33 +1.32%

Electricity 11,109.29 +1.31%

Real Estate Investment & Services 2,035.36 +1.25%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Automobiles & Parts 1,836.39 -1.73%

Oil, Gas and Coal 7,921.82 -1.07%

Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 20,899.70 -0.96%

Medical Equipment and Services 10,003.07 -0.94%

Chemicals 9,718.04 -0.92%