Sector movers: Life insurers and retailers tumble, tobacco still smoking
More sectors were in the red than not on Thursday, with industrial metals, miners and insurers leading the decline, while tobacco stocks were smoking hot for the second day in a row.
Evraz in the Industrial Metals & Mining sector and BHP and Rio Tinto in Mining were big drags as their shares went ex-dividend.
Life insurance was a loser again this week as investors gave Aviva the cold shoulder after the group changed to a progressive dividend policy and gave a more cautious outlook on growth of earnings per share. New boss Maurice Tulloch, an internal promotion announced at the start of the week, said he will be "injecting a different pace of change into Aviva".
Analysts at UBS said the move to a progressive dividend policy would result in dividends growing more in-line with EPS from here, "which is sensible, although lower than our expectation".
Almost all shares in the General Retail sector were on the slide, with Marks & Spencers, Kingfisher, Halfords, Inchape, Dixons Carphone and Card Factory were all down more than 2%.
Likely factors included the profit warning from clothing chain Quiz, where store sales tumbled 11%. Broker Peel Hunt said, however, that it was "without doubt... a Quiz-specific problem", but elsewhere privately held clothing chain LK Bennett called in the administrators.
Industry data from BDO is due to be released on Friday that is not expected to be pretty, while there was also increased Brexit anxiety that was also putting pressure on the pound and likely also sentiment on the UK economy. Market analyst David Madden at CMC Markets said "dealers are holding out little hope for Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement".
Tobacco giants BAT and Imperial Brands made gains for the second day in a row as investors welcomed the resignation of America's chief drug and tobacco regulator, Scott Gottlieb, who had been spearheading a ban on menthol cigarettes and curbs on e-cigarettes.
Analysts at RBC Capital Markets said: "While this event serves as a near-term catalyst, the real impact depends on who ultimately replaces him, in our view. We are monitoring the situation closely with our contacts on the Hill but understand that the process to permanently fill the position is likely to be lengthy.
"Commissioner Gottlieb’s departure could be viewed as an opportunity for aggressive actions against the tobacco industry to be reversed and tobacco regulation to be moved to the backburner, as his proposals had run into fierce opposition by anti-regulation groups."
Top performing sectors so far today
Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,247.76 +4.63%
Tobacco 36,335.76 +2.10%
Leisure Goods 7,657.11 +1.82%
Beverages 24,279.36 +1.77%
Personal Goods 35,612.23 +1.36%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Industrial Metals & Mining 5,582.53 -4.03%
Life Insurance 7,618.95 -2.47%
Mining 19,016.58 -2.08%
General Retailers 2,221.64 -1.93%
General Industrials 5,612.67 -1.81%
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,176.18 -0.28%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 19,213.52 -0.75%
FTSE 100 - Risers
Melrose Industries (MRO) 189.00p 4.97%
Informa (INF) 737.80p 3.68%
Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 7,010.00p 2.34%
British American Tobacco (BATS) 3,119.00p 2.26%
Diageo (DGE) 3,048.00p 1.87%
National Grid (NG.) 861.30p 1.77%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 6,172.00p 1.76%
Unilever (ULVR) 4,111.50p 1.62%
Vodafone Group (VOD) 135.50p 1.15%
Experian (EXPN) 2,035.00p 1.09%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Persimmon (PSN) 2,258.00p -7.19%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 4,158.00p -7.15%
NMC Health (NMC) 2,802.00p -6.60%
Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) 5,710.00p -5.85%
Schroders (SDR) 2,600.00p -5.73%
Evraz (EVR) 579.60p -4.98%
GVC Holdings (GVC) 684.50p -4.53%
Admiral Group (ADM) 2,092.00p -4.52%
Aviva (AV.) 415.80p -4.04%
easyJet (EZJ) 1,194.00p -4.02%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Ultra Electronics Holdings (ULE) 1,600.00p 11.03%
Premier Oil (PMO) 79.40p 7.44%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 424.10p 6.21%
Indivior (INDV) 117.15p 4.64%
Spirent Communications (SPT) 157.80p 4.37%
Funding Circle Holdings (FCH) 364.80p 3.93%
Clarkson (CKN) 2,620.00p 2.75%
Ascential (ASCL) 349.60p 2.64%
Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings (AML) 1,130.60p 2.48%
FDM Group (Holdings) (FDM) 887.00p 1.95%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Superdry (SDRY) 514.50p -6.96%
Vietnam Enterprise Investments (DI) (VEIL) 438.00p -5.40%
Restaurant Group (RTN) 124.90p -4.66%
Ted Baker (TED) 1,835.11p -4.47%
William Hill (WMH) 166.26p -4.45%
888 Holdings (888) 164.50p -3.97%
Redrow (RDW) 619.50p -3.58%
TP ICAP (TCAP) 306.20p -3.50%
Softcat (SCT) 745.00p -3.25%
Elementis (ELM) 161.00p -3.19%