Investors may be disappointed, if not entirely surprised, to see UK equities in decline as 2019 kicks-off in earnest. Today's drag on stock markets takes the form of disappointing Chinese manufacturing data that is prompting renewed concern over global economic growth.
The impact is being felt particularly by energy and commodities related stocks, such as mining groups.
While the multitude of factors that impact the highly complex financial and economic system can be sometimes difficult to isolate there are tools available on the Shares website designed to help identify the companies and industry sectors having the most marked effect.
The Share Prices tool can quickly highlight the biggest stock market risers and fallers across the various indices, such as the FTSE 100, FTSE 250 and AIM indexes.
On the same page, you can also find out how all the sectors are fairing with data covering not only today, but also the past week, month and year.
A quick scan of the data today reveals that the tobacco sector has suffered the biggest decline over the last 12 months, down 44.5%. Transport, mobile telecommunications, retail and computer software have also endured a testing 12 months.
Sectors example, full list available
Concerns over a regulatory crackdown has weighed heavily on tobacco companies and the retail sector has been hit by well documented woes of lower footfall and reduced consumer spending, as well as the long-run shift to online shopping.
WHY MINERS MATTER
It is worth remembering that not all UK sectors are equal due to the weighting mechanism which makes some far more influential than others. The FTSE 100 is loaded towards financials, energy and consumer staples, which account for roughly 20%, 17% and 16% respectively, based on September 2018 statistics.
Mining companies typically struggle on any whiff of negative news coming out of China, which makes today's dismal sector performance less understandable. Between them the UK-quoted mining companies supply staggering quantities of commodities to the Chinese, so any economic slowdown out there spells possible trouble for miners.
Steep declines in the share prices of Antofagasta (ANTO) and Evraz (EVR) have contributed to the FTSE 100’s decline today with the mining sector shedding around 610 points today.
