Sector movers: Tug of war between Big Oil, miners

Shares in the oil majors proved a drag for the Footsie on Monday after Saudi Arabia over the weekend announced a steep cut in the price of its cargoes for export to Asia.

On Sunday, Saudi Aramco, the Middle Eastern Kingdom´s state-owned oil company cut its price for shipments of Arab Light crude oil in September by $1.30 a barrel to $1.10 below the regional Asian benchmark.

As of 17:45 BST Brent crude oil futures for October were down by 3.668% to $42.00 per barrel on the ICE, alongside a drop of 3.974% to $40.01 for the September 2016 West Texas Intermediate contract.

In the specific case of Royal Dutch Shell, analysts at Citi sounded a cautious note on the outlook for the oil major´s performance in the short-term.

Were all the company´s dividends to be paid out in cash that would mean paying out 80% of its cash flow from operations as dividend over the first half of the year, Alastair R. Syme said in a research report sent to clients.

The slump in oil prices also took its toll on the likes of Weir Group, which in turn weighed on the industrial engineering space.

Miners on the other hand were on the up on the back of generally better than expected economic data out of China and a raft of positive analyst commentary on Anglo American.

The official Chinese manufacturing purchasing managers’ index for July fell to 49.9 from 50.0 the month before. A reading below 50 indicates a contraction. Economists had been expecting a reading of 50.1.

However, the private PMI survey by Caixin/Markit came in at 50.6 in July from 48.6 in June, beating expectations.

Meanwhile, the official non-manufacturing PMI nudged up to 53.9 in July from 53.7 in June.

Prices for most industrial metals, with those for copper being one notable exception, registered large gains on the back of the data.

Shares in Anglo American got a boost from an upgrade out of analysts at RBC from "sector perform" to "outperform".

HSBC and UBS also stepped in with supportive commentary.

In a research note dated 29 July, the former lifted its target price on shares of the miner from 880p to 930p, referencing an improved operating performance, while keeping its recommendation steady at a 'hold'.

Nevertheless, analysts Derryn Maade, Emma Townshend, Vidhya Sreelan also said the investment case "was not yet compelling".

"Better-than-expected performance faces headwinds in H2 on slowing diamond sales and fading bulk commodity prices [...] while restructuring strategy looks questionable given non-core divisions contributed c44% to underlying EBITDA."

Top performing sectors so far today
Mining 11,821.32 +1.28%
Food Producers & Processors 8,111.36 +1.22%
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 14,780.95 +0.52%
Mobile Telecommunications 5,186.78 +0.47%
Forestry & Paper 16,523.26 +0.26%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Industrial Metals & Mining 1,620.11 -3.91%
Oil & Gas Producers 7,057.14 -2.19%
Fixed Line Telecommunications 4,645.02 -1.40%
Real Estate Investment & Services 2,409.00 -1.17%
Industrial Engineering 9,146.78 -1.11%