Sector movers: UK stocks underperform their US peers again

(Sharecast News) - UK stocks underperformed their peers on the other side of the Pond again on Tuesday. Shares of Burberry dragged the Personal Goods category to the bottom of the pile, alongside declines for homebuilders.

Dragging on the latter likely was profit-taking now that the elections were passed and their verdict known.

Nevertheless, in the background yields on longer-term government bond yields were moving a bit higher, as in the US, but less so than across the Channel or in France.

In afternoon trading, the head of the Federal Reserve said in his testimony to the US Congress that the country's jobs market was no longer "overheated", having returned to its situation from before the pandemic.

"Strong" immigration had played a role in that, Jerome Powell added.

Nevertheless, the Fed still wanted "greater confidence" that inflation was headed down to its inflation target - permanently.

Powell also said that he would demur on Tuesday from providing any signals on the possible timing of any rate cuts.

Data due out the next day was expected to show that the headline US Consumer Price Index advanced at a 0.1% month-on-month clip and by 0.2% at the core level.

Precious metals miners on the other hand were among the best performing areas of the market, alongside other defensives.

They too could reasonably be expected to respond to an in line CPI reading, not to mention any positive surprises.

As an aside, in a research note sent to clients, analysts at Citi predicted that gold might hit an average price of $2,400-2,600/oz. in the back half of 2024.

Their base case was for a move higher to $2,800-3,000/oz. by mid-2025.

Top performing sectors so far today

Telecommunications Service Providers 2,041.83 +0.84%

Tobacco 28,706.80 +0.73%

Precious Metals and Mining 10,870.37 +0.42%

Electronic & Electrical Equipment 10,335.04 +0.25%

Alternative Energy 0.00 0.00%

Bottom performing sectors so far today

Personal Goods 13,203.38 -4.38%

Household Goods & Home Construction 13,574.53 -2.48%

Industrial Engineering 12,978.33 -1.74%

Aerospace and Defence 10,810.91 -1.63%

Construction & Materials 10,910.95 -1.51%