Sphere Medical Holding Share News (SPHR)

A reduction in risk appetite across financial markets on Tuesday helped stocks in defensive sectors such as healthcare with heavyweight constituent Smith & Nephew lifted higher after a broker upgrade.Sectors such as mining, oil and banking were being sold off today with "risk assets [being] dumped in favour for safe havens on December taper fears", according to Market Strategist Ishaq Siddiqi from ETX Capital, alluding to the impending withdrawal of stimulus by the Federal Reserve.Smith & Nephew, which makes a range of medical equipment for the orthopaedic, wound management, sports medicine and trauma sectors, was one of the few stocks on the FTSE 100 making decent gains this afternoon, after hitting an all-time high earlier in the day.Morgan Stanley raised its rating for the stock from 'equal weight' to 'overweight', recommending investors to add exposure to the European healthcare equipment sector in 2014."The sector has underperformed significantly over the last six months (during the dash for value) and relative valuations are now very attractive [...] Further the sector traditionally outperforms in strong USD environments and our analyst team believes the sector is likely to see an uptick in M&A in 2014," the US bank said.The comments helped Smith & Nephew's share price up 2.03% to 829.5p before the close of trade after earlier hitting an intraday high of 836.5p, a 52-week and record high.Others in the sector including NMC Health, CareTech, Synergy Health, Optos, Consort Medical, Circle Holdings and Sphere Medical were also making gains on Tuesday.Top performing sectors so far todayHealth Care Equipment & Services 4,626.08 +1.94%Electricity 8,724.64 +0.37%Bottom performing sectors so far todayIndustrial Metals & Mining 1,277.20 -2.40%Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 22,534.14 -2.13%Life Insurance 6,535.69 -2.03%Construction & Materials 4,162.04 -1.90%Automobiles & Parts 8,618.11 -1.84%BC