Sector movers: Builders boosted, food retailers go off
The construction and house-building sectors were on the front foot late on Wednesday, while food retailers were dragged down by Tesco's results.
Balfour Beatty
361.20p
16:40 26/04/24
Construction & Materials
9,822.47
16:59 26/04/24
FTSE 100
8,139.83
17:09 26/04/24
FTSE 250
19,824.16
16:59 26/04/24
FTSE 350
4,470.09
16:59 26/04/24
FTSE All-Share
4,423.59
17:14 26/04/24
Household Goods & Home Construction
12,702.92
16:59 26/04/24
Kier Group
134.60p
16:35 26/04/24
Taylor Wimpey
134.30p
16:40 26/04/24
Builders were given a boost by Theresa May's speech to the Conservative Party conference, where one of the unexpected proposals was to remove the cap on the amount local authorities can borrow to build social housing. This is designed to increase councils' powers to build more homes.
Hew Edgar, head of policy at RICS, the surveys trade body, said May had taken a "large and very positive step".
“RICS has long called for councils to be alleviated from the restrictive borrowing cap, and this policy will allow them to re-establish themselves as genuine players in housing again. Indeed, 40 years ago, local councils built 40% of all new homes; but for too long, councils have been limited in their capacity to make this significant contribution."
Kier, Balfour Beatty, Taylor Wimpey, Berkeley, Persimmon and Bovis were among the shares that climbed higher in afternoon trade.
Food retailer was the sector recording the biggest drop, but this was entirely due to Tesco's half-year profits coming in short of the City's analysts consensus.
However the core UK business was in good shape, with like-for-like sales increased 2.2% thanks to an acceleration in the second quarter.
Peers Sainsbury's and Morrisons were both in the green on Wednesday.
Top performing sectors so far today
Fixed Line Telecommunications 2,651.52 +2.43%
Mobile Telecommunications 3,640.02 +1.82%
Construction & Materials 6,092.36 +1.50%
Industrial Engineering 12,922.50 +1.42%
Industrial Metals & Mining 5,336.43 +1.42%
Bottom performing sectors so far today
Food & Drug Retailers 3,796.85 -3.96%
Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 15,998.55 -1.08%
Chemicals 16,134.24 -0.84%
Electronic & Electrical Equipment 6,873.05 -0.78%
Forestry & Paper 23,573.20 -0.48%
Market Movers
FTSE 100 (UKX) 7,522.88 0.65%
FTSE 250 (MCX) 20,314.10 0.24%
techMARK (TASX) 3,520.57 0.69%
FTSE 100 - Risers
ITV (ITV) 162.30p 3.77%
Kingfisher (KGF) 261.20p 3.00%
Schroders (SDR) 3,065.00p 2.85%
Paddy Power Betfair (PPB) 6,725.00p 2.44%
Standard Chartered (STAN) 627.40p 2.37%
Ocado Group (OCDO) 915.00p 2.19%
Melrose Industries (MRO) 199.85p 2.17%
Next (NXT) 5,466.00p 2.09%
BT Group (BT.A) 228.85p 2.07%
Informa (INF) 749.80p 1.82%
FTSE 100 - Fallers
Tesco (TSCO) 215.00p -8.59%
DCC (DCC) 6,910.00p -2.95%
Ferguson (FERG) 5,972.00p -1.82%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,679.00p -1.76%
Halma (HLMA) 1,470.00p -1.41%
NMC Health (NMC) 3,380.00p -1.29%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,434.00p -1.21%
United Utilities Group (UU.) 711.40p -1.14%
RSA Insurance Group (RSA) 579.80p -1.09%
Severn Trent (SVT) 1,842.50p -0.97%
FTSE 250 - Risers
Indivior (INDV) 198.00p 5.88%
Computacenter (CCC) 1,338.00p 4.53%
Greencore Group (GNC) 192.30p 3.95%
Weir Group (WEIR) 1,800.00p 3.39%
Syncona Limited NPV (SYNC) 304.50p 3.22%
Softcat (SCT) 841.00p 3.19%
Inmarsat (ISAT) 501.40p 3.19%
Superdry (SDRY) 1,068.00p 2.89%
RPC Group (RPC) 827.40p 2.53%
Sirius Minerals (SXX) 27.52p 2.38%
FTSE 250 - Fallers
Victrex plc (VCT) 3,114.00p -6.54%
Equiniti Group (EQN) 236.50p -4.44%
Homeserve (HSV) 995.00p -4.14%
Ted Baker (TED) 2,290.00p -3.29%
Jupiter Fund Management (JUP) 391.70p -2.63%
On The Beach Group (OTB) 494.64p -2.63%
Close Brothers Group (CBG) 1,514.00p -2.57%
Renishaw (RSW) 4,662.00p -2.35%
Vivo Energy (VVO) 129.24p -2.09%
Polypipe Group (PLP) 354.60p -1.88%