Sector movers: Mobile telecommunications, Life insurers pace gains
The more cyclical segments of the market paced gains on Thursday, with investor sentiment helped by the record highs notched up by Wall Street's main market gauges in the previous session and hopes for easier central bank policies going forwards.
Feeding expectations for the latter, European Central Bank governing council member, Olli Rehn, told Boersen Zeitung in an interview that the slowdown in euro area growth could no longer be described as a "dip" and argued for rate-setters to be ready to ease further if needed.
"Growth in the euro area has slowed significantly recently. We cannot deny that there are doubts among market participants and the public about the ability of the central bank to achieve the price stability target," he said.
To take note of, 10-year US government bond yields were near three-year lows and below 2.0% while in Germany yields on similarly-dated debt were at record lows and well into negative territory.
Against that backdrop, Mobile Telecommunications, Life Insurance and Construction Materials were all higher.
Pacing the advance among the former, analysts at Barclays Research weighed in with a positive note on Vodafone, reiterating their 'buy' stance on the shares in anticipation that a move to combine its tower assets in Italy with those of Telecom Italia would pave the way for the telco to monetise those assets and pare its debt pile.
Among construction stocks meanwhile it was CRH that paced gains, thanks to its exposure to the US, while life insurers tend to benefit on the back of advances in the stock market in so far as they help the group to pay for their liabilities.
Top performing sectors so far today
Mobile Telecommunications 3,038.75 +1.48%
Life Insurance 8,295.47 +0.97%
Food & Drug Retailers 3,953.47 +0.83%
Construction & Materials 6,072.29 +0.82%
Oil & Gas Producers 9,419.09 +0.75%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Industrial Metals & Mining 6,143.30 -3.17%
Mining 20,639.03 -1.27%
Health Care Equipment & Services 7,870.81 -1.08%
Electronic & Electrical Equipment 8,499.87 -1.05%
Technology Hardware & Equipment 1,260.37 -0.75%