Sector movers: Profit-taking in pharma alongside bounce in Aston Martin, Petrofac

A drop in shares of AstraZeneca, possibly as a result of profit-taking following recent gains, accounted for weakness in the pharma space.

In the case of British American Tobacco and Imperial Brands on the other hand there was a specific trigger.

Figures from Nielsen showed that US cigarette sales dropped 6.9% by value and 11.2% in volume in the four weeks to mid-May - their biggest decline in at least four years.

The retreat in its shares materialised despite analysts at JPMorgan Cazenove having reiterated their 'overweight' rating on the stock post recent pipeline developments.

"We continue to see Astra offering a mid-teens core earnings per share compound annual growth rate, which we see as undervalued, with the stock trading on circa 19x 2020e core EPS," they said.

"We see shares re-rating to 22x, driven by delivery on top-line growth, margin expansion and pipeline news."

Auto&Parts and Oil Equipment saw a bounce in some beaten down cyclical names, including Aston Martin and Petrofac.

Helping to stoke interest in the former was the announcement by Fiat and Renault over the bank holiday of their intention to merge.

Nonetheless, despite sharp share price gains for the two companies involved in the tie-up, which would result in the creation of the world's third largest carmaker, with output of 8.7m vehicles, or the largest with production of 15.90m if the Renault-Nissan alliance was included, analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch were unenthused.

They lowered their target price for Renault shares from €69 to €65 despite the announcement, pointing to a statement from the Italian government saying that they "welcome the FCA-Renault deal, as long as factories in Italy stay open".

That, BofA-ML said, highlighted how difficult it might be to reap cost savings.

"We expect further industry consolidation, as OEMs are facing ever increasing investment costs for CO2 compliance as well as electric & autonomous vehicles.

"[...] 40% of savings are expected from procurement [...] This puts further pressure on suppliers, which we expect to be net losers from OEM consolidation."

Some consumer staple stocks were also on the up on Tuesday, such as grocers, ahead of the latest Kantar market share figures due out the next day.

Top performing sectors so far today

Automobiles & Parts 5,676.38 +3.42%

Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 9,151.28 +2.18%

Health Care Equipment & Services 7,673.55 +2.02%

Food & Drug Retailers 3,921.18 +1.94%

Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,238.29 +1.55%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Tobacco 31,988.12 -3.09%

Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology 14,751.19 -2.21%

Industrial Metals & Mining 5,474.50 -2.18%

Aerospace and Defence 4,489.31 -0.99%

Real Estate Investment & Services 2,482.57 -0.89%