Sector movers: Banks rise as Goldman lifts targets

Banking stocks were performing well on Monday afternoon after Goldman Sachs raised target prices across the sector.Goldman labelled HSBC as a 'conviction buy' and upped its target price from 820p to 860p. Even RBS was making gains despite the US bank downgrading the stock to 'sell'. Nevertheless, the target was still lifted from 325p to 340p.Barclays was also performing well after Goldman raised its target price for the shares from 320p to 350p and kept its 'buy' rating.The latter, which is due to present its new strategic plans on February 12th, was shrugging off some gloomy comments from Credit Suisse today, which said it believes that it will be difficult for the bank to "transform" profitability. The Swiss broker kept its 'neutral' rating and 250p target price for the stock, saying: "We think that the strategy day is unlikely to be as radical as the market appears to think, with some reshaping of BarCap but not a significant shift in direction at this stage. We see the plan constrained by capital and the performance of other business units."Top performing sectors so far todayBanks 4,993.84 +1.06%Mobile Telecommunications 4,011.90 +0.86%Electricity 8,872.99 +0.66%Household Goods & Home Construction 8,975.62 +0.63%Food Producers & Processors 6,920.40 +0.58%Bottom performing sectors so far todayIndustrial Metals & Mining 3,050.98 -2.11%Automobiles & Parts 5,688.51 -1.34%Personal Goods 21,572.49 -1.21%General Retailers 2,037.04 -0.44%Industrial Engineering 8,694.74 -0.43%BC