Sector movers: Banks and insurers play catch-up with US peers

Shares in banks and insurers played catch-up with their US-listed counterparts, pushing higher on hopes that interest rates might indeed be heading higher even in the very short-term.

The Philadelphia Stock Exchange´s index of bank shares was off 0.02% at 72.47 after having spent most of the day well in the red, albeit after a strong run over the past four sessions.

Also stoking interest in big-cap financials in London were reports that German lenders Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank had recently held exploratory talks regarding a possible tie-up.

Real estate issues were also in demand after Nationwide reported that UK home prices rose 0.6% month-on-month in August, pushing the year-on-year rate of gains from 5.2% year-on-year in July to 5.6% in August.

Nevertheless, economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics dubbed the figures "incongruous to all the other noises from the housing market" since the Brexit vote.

Nationwide´s measure was based only on lenders´ mortgage offers, "so it susceptible to sampling issues", they cautioned.

Tesco shined bright among food and drug retailers, after news broke that the Financial Reporting Council has dropped an investigation into the former Tesco chief financial officer Laurie McIlwee, nearly two years after an accounting scandal emerged at the supermarket.

Top performing sectors so far today
Banks 3,603.01 +1.20%
Real Estate Investment & Services 2,482.78 +0.92%
Real Estate Investment Trusts 3,004.42 +0.63%
Food & Drug Retailers 2,691.65 +0.58%
Life Insurance 6,944.69 +0.58%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Mining 11,001.97 -3.21%
Industrial Metals & Mining 1,260.64 -3.03%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 14,815.59 -2.54%
Oil & Gas Producers 7,053.66 -1.78%
Forestry & Paper 16,684.83 -1.40%