Sector movers: Bearish Goldman fails to dent banks

The banking sector has shrugged off a bearish note from Goldman Sachs to post good gains. The broker downgraded the sector to 'neutral' following its recent strong showing, saying that large global retail banks are likely to be the stocks to hold in the sector. Barclays is wanted after the Telegraph reported that it is set to award its 22,000 investment bankers pay rises of up to 150%.Lloyds Banking is also higher, as is Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS). The latter has reversed earlier losses. Market makers initially marked RBS lower on news that that the bank's board is threatening to resign en masse if Alistair Darling puts a padlock on the group's £1.5bn bonus pot.Metals prices are strong, but investors have taken the opportunity to sell miners following buoyancy in the sector recently.Among the fallers are big miners including diversified giant Xstrata, silver miner Fresnillo and platinum miner Aquarius.Petra Diamonds, up 7.5%, is bucking the trend after raising $120m (£72.7m) from a placing of shares at 60p each to strengthen the balance sheet and develop its mines.Top performing sectors so far todayLife Insurance 3,932.35 +1.56%Industrial Metals 5,130.88 +1.55%Banks 4,946.43 +1.39%Travel & Leisure 4,044.86 +1.05%Electronic & Electrical Equipment 1,502.02 +1.02%Bottom performing sectors so far todayMining 21,248.55 -1.62%Mobile Telecommunications 3,257.26 -1.18%Aerospace and Defence 2,981.21 -0.80%Automobiles & Parts 2,602.27 -0.71%Fixed Line Telecommunications 2,020.19 -0.71%