Sector movers: Hunting and Worldpay lead their sectors higher

Hunting and Worldpay led their respective sectors higher on a light day in terms of market events.

Shares of international energy services group Hunting were buoyed as the company told investors it had benefited from increased activity in onshore drilling in the US, particularly in the shale oil regions such as the Permian Basin in West Texas.

But the star of the session was without any doubt Worldpay.

Stock in the payments processor rocketed after it announced it had received preliminary takeover interest from US-based Vantiv and JP Morgan Chase.

The company said there could be no certainty that an either an offer would be made nor as to the terms of any proposed transaction.

Yet investors appeared to side with the likes of analysts at Olivetree Financial, who highlighted the fact that these approaches came hot on the heels of the preliminary approach to rival Nets over the prior weekend.

However, Olivetree argued that Worldpay was a more attractive asset and likely to invite more competitive interest.

Miners also put in a solid showing following recent more upbeat economic data out of China and commodity price gains on the heels of weakness in the US dollar.

Going the other way, defensives were again out of favour on the back of recent gains for government bond yields around the world.

Top performing sectors so far today

Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 12,294.73 +2.07%

Support Services 7,789.55 +1.50%

Mining 15,289.27 +0.74%

Insurance (non-life) 3,082.77 +0.55%

Forestry & Paper 21,812.00 +0.40%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Health Care Equipment & Services 8,136.97 -1.03%

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 5,816.42 -0.81%

Tobacco 57,111.67 -0.66%

Software & Computer Services 2,010.40 -0.63%