Sector movers: Mining, oil stocks recover ground on calm trading day

Having taken a hammering over the previous day’s trading, mining stocks recovered lost ground on Tuesday as the FTSE 100 stayed comfortably above the 7,000 level.

At 16:11 BST, the FTSE 100 was trading up 7.79 points or 0.11% at 7072.09, marginally short of its 52-week high of 7089.77. Mining stocks partially reversed Monday’s sell-off triggered by a series of analysts’ downgrade following continued turmoil in the iron ore markets.

The mining index was up 424.60 points or 3.13% at 14.039.32, with Lonmin (up 5.97%), Kaz Minerals (up 4.60%), Anglo American (up 4.59%), BHP Billiton (up 3.18%), Glencore (up 3.07%) and Antofagasta (up 3.05%) leading the index higher.

Broadly speaking, the session belonged to the wider natural resources sphere as oil and gas stocks were also heading higher, and oilfield and engineering firms benefitted from wider positivity in the market.

Tullow Oil (up 8.19%) led the sector, after Citigroup raised its rating on the stock from 'neutral' to 'buy', saying that the oil group's portfolio quality was "undervalued" by the market. The market was also strengthened by news that persistent oversupply in the global oil markets was showing some signs of ebbing with no immediate prospect of additional Iranian barrels flooding the supply pool.

Brent crude was trading up 1.10% or 64 cents to $58.57 per barrel while WTI was up 2.43% or 126 cents at $53.17 per barrel, with the latter moving more on perceptions of declining US shale production.

Alongside Tullow Oil, Vedanta Resources (up 7.63%), Premier Oil (6.95%) and Weir Group (up 5.25%) were among the top oil-related shares to climb on Tuesday.

Going the other way, financial services sector stocks were among the biggest fallers chiefly down to industry captains leaving their long held executive offices. Hiscox (down 3.23%) continued lower on news that chief financial officer Stuart Bridges would be leaving, after 16 years in the role, to join interdealer broker ICAP.

Concurrently, Hargreaves Lansdown (down 2.34%) shares plummeted after Peter Hargreaves, the co-founder of group stepped down from the board. Hargreaves, still owns 32% of the business he founded with Stephen Lansdown in 1981. The departure follows news of the resignation of finance director Tracey Taylor, who is set to depart in June.

Top Five Sectors:

Mining 14,039.32 +425.60 +3.13%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 19,695.23 +424.55 +2.20%
Industrial Engineering 9,515.77 +107.21 1.14%
Oil & Gas Producers 7,506.08 +40.88 +0.55%
Real Estate Investment Trusts 3,449.00 +18.62% +0.54%