Sector movers: Miners, financials gain after US jobs data

3rd Aug 2012 15:50

There were no sectors in the red on Friday in London as some uplifting economic data from the US increased investors' risk appetite.Some 163,000 US payrolls were added in July, well ahead of the 100,000 expected by economists. Meanwhile, the non-manufacturing index from the Institute for Supply Management rose from 52.1 to 52.6, ahead of the 51.5 forecast.As such, London's mining, insurance and banking sectors were benefitting from the bullish mood on equity markets.Kazakhmys, Vedanta and ENRC were leading miners higher, while insurance peers Aviva and Prudential were also performing well.Insurance giant Aviva was on the up ahead of its interim results next week, with both Credit Suisse and Investec retaining their 'outperform' and 'buy' ratings for the stock today. Investec said this morning that the shares "have the potential, we believe, to re-rate once the market has seen the first two or three disposals" of the group's non-core business disposal programme, details of which may be revealed alongside the results. Meanwhile, the banking sector was given a lift by some well-received first-half results from Royal Bank of Scotland. RBS's operating profit in the first half of 2012 fell from £1,966m to £1,834m, after a £125m provision for costs arising from the technology incident in June 2012 and a £50m provision for interest rate swap mis-selling. Investec said this morning that it "remains a mystery as to why nationalisation might be considered practical or desirable" as the bank is "more than capable of responding to any uptick in credit-worth demand for finance". Sector peers Barclays and Standard Chartered were also in demand.Top performing sectors so far todayIndustrial Metals & Mining 2,573.17 +5.15%Life Insurance 4,443.54 +4.98%Banks 3,699.49 +4.40%Automobiles & Parts 4,923.97 +3.74%Mining 17,792.97 +3.71%Bottom performing sectors so far todayBC