Sector movers: Resources and retailers on the up

Resources stocks and retailers made an unusual alliance to lead the upside on Tuesday, while tech and telecoms were slightly lower.

Resources were fuelled by crude prices continuing on their upward trajectory, with Brent hitting a fresh four-year high above $82 a barrel.

Chris Beauchamp, chief market analyst at IG, said that BP and Shell have been the main support for the FTSE 100 over the past two days.

Compensating for a fall in base metals prices, miners were given a helping hand by Morgan Stanley, which upgraded its stance on the industry to 'overweight', seeing "five reasons to like mining: 1) underperformance vs other cyclicals, 2) valuations at lows, 3) oversold performance despite EPS revisions bottoming, 4) late-cycle outperformance and 5) USD peaking and China policy easing".

Meanwhile, Next shares rose more than 9% to drag the retail sector higher and put a little spring into the step of several high street names even though it was on the back of a trading update that was a mix of encouraging signs and continued caution. Primark owner AB Foods, Marks & Spencer, Dixons Carphone and JD Sports were all in the green.

Department store group Debenhams was also higher as it launched its new 'store of the future', including new branding and a highly flexible layout that includes a revamped beauty hall offering a gin bar, stands offering facials and blow dries, a multibrand 'minibar' area for shoppers to experiment with different brands, and in-store assistants at a beauty 'clubhouse' offering independent advice and a number of ‘labs’ for men, colour, hair and skin.

Analyst John Stevenson at stockbroker Peel Hunt said the new store showed "clear and tangible progress" on the Stevenage trial store last year to create a more service-focused environment, "with clear evolution in clothing merchandising, gifts and home" and the beauty hall showed a clear emphasis on experience.

The technology hardware sector was down as its single FTSE 350 constituent, Spirent, dropped back from the five-year high it reached on Monday.

Analysts at Liberum recently opined that strong recent results from US giant Cisco indicated a desire by operators to reduce operational expenditure by increasing network automation, which was acting as a "major driver of demand" for Spirent's products as well, especially VisionWorks.

"The two products do not compete but help automate different network management functions. The strong performance and outlook of Spirent's largest ethernet testing customer is also likely to help move that business into a 400G-led upcycle from H2'18. We believe Spirent is at the start of a mult-year growth cycle and remain strong buyers of the stock," analysts said.

Top performing sectors so far today

Industrial Metals & Mining 5,083.23 +2.49%
Oil & Gas Producers 9,798.55 +2.12%
General Retailers 2,330.44 +1.99%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 15,888.51 +1.84%
Mining 18,016.37 +1.53%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,026.91 -0.91%
Mobile Telecommunications 3,761.73 -0.87%
Fixed Line Telecommunications 2,612.84 -0.64%
Automobiles & Parts 10,465.88 -0.46%
General Industrials 6,712.66 -0.46%

Market Movers

FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,504.76 0.62%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,512.98 0.12%
techMARK (TASX) 3,494.49 0.14%

FTSE 100 - Risers

Next (NXT) 5,612.00p 9.52%
Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 5,452.00p 4.44%
Just Eat (JE.) 684.00p 4.11%
Intertek Group (ITRK) 4,956.00p 3.34%
Glencore (GLEN) 340.70p 3.24%
Evraz (EVR) 563.00p 2.48%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,672.00p 2.36%
BP (BP.) 582.90p 2.25%
Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 172.75p 2.19%
Royal Dutch Shell 'A' (RDSA) 2,645.00p 1.95%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

easyJet (EZJ) 1,330.00p -3.69%
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 664.20p -3.26%
Pearson (PSON) 875.60p -1.40%
London Stock Exchange Group (LSE) 4,612.00p -1.09%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 256.40p -0.93%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 168.60p -0.83%
DCC (DCC) 7,330.00p -0.81%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 990.40p -0.70%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,997.00p -0.70%
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) 61.24p -0.68%

FTSE 250 - Risers

Thomas Cook Group (TCG) 59.26p 5.81%
Greencore Group (GNC) 187.25p 5.52%
Premier Oil (PMO) 135.60p 4.87%
IP Group (IPO) 131.00p 4.30%
Drax Group (DRX) 376.40p 4.27%
SIG (SHI) 129.00p 4.03%
On The Beach Group (OTB) 496.50p 3.87%
Entertainment One Limited (ETO) 390.80p 3.72%
Tullow Oil (TLW) 263.40p 3.70%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 233.80p 3.00%

FTSE 250 - Fallers

Plus500 Ltd (DI) (PLUS) 1,455.00p -4.46%
TalkTalk Telecom Group (TALK) 127.70p -4.06%
AA (AA.) 120.05p -3.88%
Genus (GNS) 2,354.00p -3.84%
Card Factory (CARD) 179.10p -3.81%
Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 2,873.00p -3.69%
Spire Healthcare Group (SPI) 153.30p -3.40%
Inchcape (INCH) 670.00p -2.69%
Assura (AGR) 54.40p -2.68%
Just Group (JUST) 79.25p -2.64%