Sector movers: ARM lifts tech stocks, Wood Group boosts oil services

The technology hardware and equipment sector was performing strongly today with heavyweight constituent ARM Holdings providing a lift. The FTSE 100 chip designer was gaining over 4% in afternoon trade riser after Bernstein upgraded its rating on the stock from underperform to market perform and raised its target price from 460p to 490p. Meanwhile, Seymour Pierce initiated coverage on ARM today with a buy recommendation.Oil equipment and services stocks were also on the up, after a strong trading update from engineering group Wood Group, which said it has seen growth across all its divisions in the first half of its financial year although downstream operations (building refineries to process oil and gas) are being hit by lower expenditure in the US. Today's update makes clear there is a plethora of upstream projects with several of the construction majors including Daewoo, Chevron and Samsung working with Wood Group. Wood Group PSN - which provides engineering support to existing facilities - is seeing "robust activity levels" while the turbines division, Wood Group GTS , is seeing "good" growth in underlying earnings. Shares rose 5.5%.The sector may also have been helped higher by a report by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) which said it is pumping oil at levels not seen since the summer of 2008.OPEC said that global oil demand would grow by 900,000 barrels a day (bpd) in 2012, above its previous estimate of 800,000bpd growth. "Given the stabilisation of the US economy and the shutdown of the Japanese nuclear power plants, world demand has - at least, for the short term - stopped its decline and has begun to show growth," it said.Sector peers Petrofac and AMEC were performing strongly this afternoon.Top performing sectors so far todayTechnology Hardware & Equipment 709.93 +5.75%Oil Equipment, Services & Distribution 25,236.75 +2.89%Industrial Transportation 2,374.75 +2.48%Electronic & Electrical Equipment 3,261.31 +2.39%Life Insurance 4,064.57 +1.83%Bottom performing sectors so far todayFixed Line Telecommunications 2,411.71 -2.57%Household Goods & Home Construction 6,820.60 -2.12%Personal Goods 22,010.84 -1.72%Tobacco 35,820.64 -1.13%Beverages 11,309.71 -1.00%BC