Sector movers: Media, mining and packaging lead the way
Packaging companies, media and resources sectors were the leading lights on Monday, while travel and leisure were sectors in the red.
The media sector was lifted by rebound gains from Rightmove, RELX and DMGT, offsetting a loss for Euromoney.
Rightmove recovered after a slide on the back of results at the end of last week. Monday saw analysts at Barclays and Exane lift their price targets on the stock. Barclays said that while growth is slowing and the decline in UK agents could accelerate, Rightmove "remains a very high quality business in a tough market".
Similarly, after giving up ground last week on the back of a lost $50m contract with a US university, analysts were pointing out that the sell-off seemed overdone. "Assuming that $50m was spread over 5 years, as seems likely, that would represent 0.3% of FY Elsevier revenues or 0.1% of group revenues but it has managed to drive Elsevier shares down more than 7%," said Liberum as it reiterated a 'buy' rating.
Euromoney and Daily Mail and General Trust both fell as the newspaper publisher announced its intention to distribute all of its shares in the business information and financial publisher.
The structure of the deal is pretty complex, analysts at Citi said and, as a result, Lord Rothermere’s family shareholding in the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday publisher is being reduced by less than other 'A shareholders', resulting in an increase in its proportionate interest in the company. "Arguably we think this move is sensible, and is helpful from a 'tidying-up' perspective, but is perhaps less impactful for DMGT overall than some of the other options available to it in terms of portfolio rationalisation" and from a Euromoney perspective, "a very helpful transition".
London's listed packaging giants, DS Smith, Smurfit Kappa and Mondi, were rebounding having fallen at the end of last week.
Investors last Thursday sold down the trio having read across to an update from US rival WestRock last week, which confirmed profit guidance and but noted it had slowed down production by 30K tons in January and 60K tons in February. The US-listed company also revealed February shipments per day were up 2.3% year on year after January shipments were up around 3%, compared to industry shipments of 1.5%.
Miners were boosted by optimism that a China-US trade deal is going to get over the line by the end of the month.
"The prospect of a US-China trade breakthrough is providing yet another boost for risk-assets, with rumours of a meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump later this month raising the likeliness of a bullish month ahead for equities," said market analyst Joshua Mahony at IG.
Miners were notable gainers from this. Further help was from JPMorgan Cazenove, which further upgraded its price estimate for iron ore on reduced Vale shipments and improved China demand.
Top performing sectors so far today
General Industrials 5,658.80 +2.07%
Forestry & Paper 20,415.47 +2.05%
Industrial Metals & Mining 5,606.89 +1.65%
Media 7,957.20 +1.52%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 11,041.07 +1.30%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,208.32 -4.96%
Leisure Goods 7,731.94 -2.21%
Mobile Telecommunications 2,949.67 -1.73%
Travel & Leisure 9,143.88 -0.51%
Automobiles & Parts 6,415.56 -0.43%
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,150.86 0.62%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,416.06 0.08%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Rightmove (RMV) 495.55p 5.01%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,864.00p 3.99%
Smith (DS) (SMDS) 347.70p 3.18%
Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,248.00p 2.93%
Rentokil Initial (RTO) 356.90p 2.68%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 182.25p 2.36%
Relx plc (REL) 1,646.50p 2.24%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 624.60p 2.18%
Wood Group (John) (WG.) 546.20p 2.09%
Mondi (MNDI) 1,811.50p 1.94%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 579.20p -3.95%
Fresnillo (FRES) 805.20p -2.28%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 132.18p -1.53%
GVC Holdings (GVC) 657.50p -1.28%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,241.50p -1.15%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 518.20p -0.88%
Direct Line Insurance Group (DLG) 355.60p -0.84%
Micro Focus International (MCRO) 1,853.00p -0.70%
Morrison (Wm) Supermarkets (MRW) 229.85p -0.65%
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) 899.80p -0.57%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Metro Bank (MTRO) 997.59p 9.39%
Indivior (INDV) 109.65p 6.40%
Coats Group (COA) 84.86p 4.13%
Fisher (James) & Sons (FSJ) 2,120.00p 3.92%
Ted Baker (TED) 1,964.94p 3.86%
Energean Oil & Gas (ENOG) 699.00p 3.48%
Superdry (SDRY) 549.00p 3.10%
Man Group (EMG) 138.65p 3.05%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 295.00p 2.79%
CLS Holdings (CLI) 241.50p 2.77%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Synthomer (SYNT) 370.80p -6.65%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 154.00p -4.47%
Euromoney Institutional Investor (ERM) 1,246.00p -4.15%
Rotork (ROR) 285.30p -3.61%
Victrex plc (VCT) 2,310.00p -3.43%
Hastings Group Holdings (HSTG) 219.40p -3.18%
Provident Financial (PFG) 582.00p -2.97%
William Hill (WMH) 178.30p -2.81%
Rank Group (RNK) 163.80p -2.50%
Bakkavor Group (BAKK) 141.60p -2.34%