Sector movers: Oil and Commodity stocks pace gains

Big Oil and Industrials Metals & Mining paced gains in the stock market despite it being another mixed session for the broader FTSE 350.

"Once again rising commodity prices have been the sticking plaster for the FTSE 100, masking losses across most of the rest of the index," said IG chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp.

"All this is a far cry from 2020, when the FTSE 100’s lack of tech names saw it fall far behind its peers. Now it is commodities that are providing the steady hand, although even the big miners and oil stocks in the index will only be able to limit the damage if the broader outlook turns more cautious."

At the individual company level, shares of BP, Shell, Glencore, Anglo American and BHP all traded higher.

In the case of oil, Brent crude futures made moderate headway as investors tried to discern how sincere Moscow's talk of confidence-building measures was and, in turn, whether there was enough overlap yet in the interests of both sides to secure a peace deal.

Key in that regard perhaps, a White House spokeswoman, citing unspecified U.S. intelligence, had earlier said that Putin had been misled by advisers about his military's performance.

"We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about how badly the Russian military is performing, and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth," she said.

Also on Wednesday, the head of Russia's negotiating team, Vladimir Medinski, poured cold water on Kyiv's attempts to bring the war to a quick end, according to Spanish daily ABC.

In remarks to Russian TV, Medinsky said that Russia's stance as regarded Crimea and Donbass had not changed.

Moscow will not negotiate with anyone regarding Crimea and it continues to see the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Luhansk's territorial limits as the same as those during the Soviet era and not the ones recognised under the Minsk treaty, which demarcates the so-called 'line of contact'.

Medinsky, whom opposition politicians in Russia reportedly consider an ultra-hardliner, reportedly also sold the results of the latest peace negotiations in Istanbul as a success.

He said that Ukraine had agreed not to join NATO, not to pursue nuclear weapons, nor to attempt recovering Crimea or the Donbass by force and that its security guarantees would not cover either of those regions.

Despite the above, Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said that "no one said that the sides have made headway [at the peace talks in Turkey] We can't point to anything particularly promising."

Top performing sectors so far today

Industrial Metals & Mining 8,030.98 +3.97%

Oil, Gas and Coal 7,165.40 +3.93%

Precious Metals and Mining 10,976.98 +3.08%

Electricity 10,964.54 +2.29%

Gas, Water & Multiutilities 6,415.06 +1.81%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Industrial Transportation 3,737.20 -3.76%

Automobiles & Parts 2,742.39 -3.23%

Construction & Materials 6,948.01 -3.23%

Leisure Goods 18,581.60 -2.55%

Electronic & Electrical Equipment 9,569.72 -2.52%