Sector movers: Stocks slip amid poor company results on either side of the Pond

Stocks gave back some ground on Thursday, partly due to many names going ex-dividend, but the downdraft in shares of Burberry highlighted the difficult trading conditions faced by some companies operating in China and the U.S., the world's two largest economies.

Burberry's like-for-like sales were ahead by a solid 10% for the half, but were up by only 1% over the three months to June, amid soft sales in the Americas and China.

A weaker-than-expected reading on U.S. jobless claims for the week ending 11 November underscored that growth was slowing elsewhere too, hitting their highest level in 12 weeks.

Equally soft results out of U.S. retail giant Wal Mart appeared to tell much the same story.

As IG chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp put it to clients: "The downturn in luxury spending is not exactly applicable to most stocks in the index, but where luxury spending goes, other spending is sure to follow, putting pressure on the index's other retail names, a point underlined by WalMart's numbers today in the US."

On a related note, front-dated Brent crude oil futures fell 2.97% to $78.21 a barrel on the ICE, dragging on shares in the oil patch.

Other cyclical areas of the market were also under pressure, while defensives such as Utilities, Electricity, and Precious Metals and Mining gained.

Worth noting, in the background yields on the benchmark 10-year Gilt were down by over 10 basis points to 4.127%.

Top performing sectors so far today

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,040.98 +1.39%

Electricity 10,505.05 +1.17%

Precious Metals and Mining 9,328.26 +1.15%

Electronic & Electrical Equipment 9,028.21 +0.65%

Telecommunications Service Providers 1,945.97 +0.54%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Personal Goods 22,962.15 -8.32%

Oil, Gas and Coal 8,550.31 -2.80%

Automobiles & Parts 1,518.00 -2.71%

General Industrials 6,208.85 -1.92%

Chemicals 8,765.72 -1.74%