Sector movers: Retailers add more unlikely gains
Retailers provided perhaps a surprising thrust on Monday, with only four sectors in negative territory.
The general retail sector was the top riser on the same day that industry data showed that shopper footfall declined for the fourteenth consecutive month. The report from Springboard and the British Retail Consortium also showed that almost one in ten shops stands empty in town centres around the UK.
Investors perhaps saw that the footfall decline in January of 0.7 was not as bad a decline as the 1.6% and thought the decline is coming to an end.
With food retail being the second best performer so far in 2019 and the general retail sector third, investors also appear to be bargain hunting that the depressed valuations aren't going to get any worse with whatever Brexit deal or no-deal Theresa May secures in the coming month or two.
N Brown was the top FTSE 350 riser, up over 4%, while Next and B&M European Value, JD Sports, Kingfisher, Dunelm and Marks & Spencer were all up around 2% or so.
Tobacco construction and mobile telecoms were among the other risers.
Leading the health care equipment sector to its bottom spot was Smith & Nephew, following a report late on Friday that it is in discussions to buy US medical equipment company NuVasive for more than $3bn.
Some analysts reported that investors were not impressed. But those at Cantor Fitzgerald said they thought the deal "is unlikely because we think there are more attractive acquisition targets that would better align with the goals of SNN's renewed M&A focus".
Top performing sectors so far today
General Retailers +2.09%
Tobacco +2.09%
Forestry & Paper +2.08%
Construction & Materials +1.96%
Mobile Telecommunications +1.73%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Health Care Equipment & Services -1.61%
Pharmaceuticals & Biotechnology -0.47%
Technology Hardware & Equipment -0.27%
Insurance (non-life) -0.04%
Mining +0.04%
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,134.53 0.90%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 18,839.49 1.00%
techMARK (TASX) 3,452.84 0.34%
FTSE 100 - Risers
TUI AG Reg Shs (DI) (TUI) 958.48p 4.94%
Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,232.00p 3.91%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 939.40p 3.87%
Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,680.50p 2.88%
WPP (WPP) 825.80p 2.86%
Schroders (SDR) 2,660.00p 2.66%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,658.00p 2.55%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 2,757.00p 2.53%
Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 494.70p 2.48%
Carnival (CCL) 4,333.00p 2.43%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Antofagasta (ANTO) 838.40p -3.79%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,472.00p -2.84%
Anglo American (AAL) 1,910.60p -1.25%
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) 1,547.80p -1.09%
Glencore (GLEN) 289.65p -0.82%
Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 340.70p -0.76%
Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 237.40p -0.71%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,129.00p -0.51%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,745.00p -0.23%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 5,684.00p -0.21%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Contour Global (GLO) 171.80p 7.98%
Metro Bank (MTRO) 1,340.09p 5.52%
Indivior (INDV) 106.60p 5.49%
IWG (IWG) 231.20p 4.05%
Just Eat (JE.) 731.40p 3.89%
Travis Perkins (TPK) 1,263.50p 3.86%
Wizz Air Holdings (WIZZ) 3,173.00p 3.83%
Daejan Holdings (DJAN) 6,010.00p 3.62%
Funding Circle Holdings (FCH) 344.85p 3.26%
Ted Baker (TED) 1,878.00p 3.19%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Hilton Food Group (HFG) 888.00p -2.84%
Kaz Minerals (KAZ) 606.40p -1.88%
Tritax Big Box Reit (BBOX) 136.40p -1.52%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 388.50p -1.40%
Beazley (BEZ) 502.00p -1.28%
Playtech (PTEC) 379.00p -1.22%
Acacia Mining (ACA) 190.00p -1.12%
Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 1,286.00p -1.08%
Diploma (DPLM) 1,274.00p -1.01%
Coats Group (COA) 89.00p -1.00%