Beverage stocks were in negative territory on Thursday afternoon with drinks groups SABMiller and Britvic providing a drag.

Lager group SABMiller was trading 1.5% lower despite seeing good growth in lager volumes shipped across most regions in the first half of its financial year. Weighing on the shares was a ratings downgrade by Shore Capital to 'hold'.

Meanwhile, analysts at Jefferies pointed out that "while the company is clearly doing a great job of balancing the price-mix/volume equation, indications of a volume softening, particularly in Latin America, could result in some negative market attention."

Soft drinks firm Britvic also fell after saying that full-year revenues were down 2.6% primarily as a result of he recall of its Robinson's Fruit Shoot product in July. This lopped a couple of percentage points off revenue growth, the company estimated. Shares were down nearly 1%.

Panmure Gordon retained its 'hold' recommendation on Britvic this morning, saying that in the absence of any further details regarding potential merger synergies with AG Barr, "the shares look fairly priced".


The construction and materials category was at the top of the pile with building materials group CRH managing to offset falls from sector peers Kier and Low & Bonar.

CRH, which specialises in infrastructure, new construction and repair, maintenance & improvement (RMI), was gaining 2.1% to 1,171p after Davy Research upgraded its rating for the stock to 'outperform'.

Infrastructure services group Balfour Beatty was also performing well in afternoon trade, up 1.5%.

Limiting gains in the sector though were construction and engineering giant Kier after selling its interests in two private finance initiative (PFI) projects and industrial fabric maker Low & Bonar after saying that profits are expected to be slightly below expectations.


Top performing sectors so far today
Construction & Materials 3,399.81 +1.69%
Food & Drug Retailers 4,056.30 +1.55%
Automobiles & Parts 4,902.92 +1.30%
General Industrials 3,353.31 +1.01%
Industrial Engineering 7,595.76 +0.96%

Bottom performing sectors so far today
Health Care Equipment & Services 3,694.29 -1.36%
Electricity 8,985.19 -1.35%
Real Estate Investment & Services 1,788.76 -1.33%
Beverages 12,517.41 -1.18%
Media 4,587.91 -1.12%

BC

Related share prices
SABMiller (SAB) share price
Balfour Beatty (BBY) share price
Barr (A.G.) (BAG) share price
CRH (CRH) share price
Kier Group (KIE) share price
Low & Bonar (LWB) share price
Britvic (BVIC) share price