Sector movers: Utilities and travel in the red, oilers gush

Oil companies led on the upside, but were outweighed by utilities and travel companies.

Utilities companies seeped lower after the Labour party stepped up its anti-privatisation rhetoric, pledging to set up publicly-owned transparent water companies run by local councils, workers and customers.

John McDonnell, shadow chancellor, used his speech at the Labour conference on Monday to promise these plans to overhaul utilities.

The plan, Labour said in a pamphlet it issued on the proposal, would be cost-neutral to the public purse, according to Office for National Statistics and international accounting standards, because the public sector exchanges a bond for the water company.

United Utilites and Pennon were both sent lower on Monday.

Tobacco continued what is soon to be a five-week down-trend on regulatory and emerging market concerns.

Automobiles and parts, consisting only of TI Fluid systems in the FTSE 350, was down on renewed trade tensions between China and the USA.

Elsewhere, travel stocks were hit as Thomas Cook warned over its full-year profits as it said unseasonably hot weather hit bookings. This sent larger rival TUI sinking lower ahead of its own results, while On The Beach, IAG, Ryanair, easyJet and Carnival were also sent into the red.

Leading the upside were the oil-related sectors as crude oil prices rallied to highs last seen in late 2014, with a barrel of front-month Brent up more than 2% to $80.80 on Monday afternoon.

Behemoths Shell and BP were on the FTSE 100 leaderboard, while crude's rise lifted Tullow despite the company having plugged and abandoned its Cormorant-1 exploration well offshore Namibia after finding "non-commercial hydrocarbons".

The media sector was also in the green, led higher by Sky after US-based Comcast outbid 21st Century Fox/Disney for the satellite broadcaster, whose independent directors urged its shareholders to accept Comcast's offer.

Sky said the Comcast offer of £17.28 represents an "excellent outcome" for its shareholders, at a premium of 125% to the closing price 6 December 2016, which was the last business day before Fox’s initial approach.

Analyst Rebecca O’Keeffe at Interactive Investor said the premium offered for Sky by Comcast was indicative of how much pressure is on traditional media platforms from the likes of Netflix. "Their newer tech savvy rivals have revolutionised the way people engage with TV and internet content and these technology giants are investing huge amounts of money into both popular shows and new content to keep customers coming back for more."

ITV, often seen as a takeover target, was up only slightly.

Said Jamie Constable at broker N+1Singer: "You would feel there must be some read across to ITV who held their Capital Markets Day last week. In the shorter term there is some concern over the current ad environment in the UK and ITV potentially bidding for Endemol."

Top performing sectors so far today

Leisure Goods 9,964.23 +2.83%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 15,616.92 +1.87%
Media 8,117.19 +1.80%
Oil & Gas Producers 9,593.48 +0.76%
Food & Drug Retailers 3,987.89 +0.67%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Tobacco 39,690.13 -2.31%
Automobiles & Parts 10,514.41 -1.89%
Gas, Water & Multiutilities 4,688.19 -1.65%
Personal Goods 36,944.33 -1.39%
Industrial Engineering 12,715.07 -1.35%