By Alistair Smout
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's top share index ended flat on Wednesday after a choppy day, with individual sectors diverging as finance minister Philip Hammond delivered the biggest economic update since Britain voted in June to leave the European Union.
The FTSE 100 index ended flat, after rising 0.6 percent in the previous session.
Housebuilders, which first benefited from government plans to boost housing and infrastructure spending, turned lower. Shares in Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV) fell 1.9 percent, while Persimmon (LON:PSN) and Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW) both dropped over 1.5 percent.
Analysts said the early gain was not sustained as the extra funding had been anticipated. There was also a lack of detail about how the new housing would be delivered, and the sector was also caught in the poor global market sentiment.
Estate agents Foxtons (LON:FOXT) and Countrywide tumbled 14 percent and 5.2 percent respectively on a government plan to ban one-off tenant fees.
Centrica (LON:CNA) and SSE (LON:SSE) were also volatile after the so-called Autumn Statement, rising sharply as Hammond said that a carbon price support scheme would be capped until 2020.
Both stocks gave up most gains, and Hammond said he was looking into whether pricing practices were fair in the sector. However, he unveiled no new regulations.
"Given a number of the utility stocks – most notably Centrica and SSE – were discounting some risk of adverse policy changes, especially with respect to carbon pricing and retail energy policy, we consider the Autumn Statement to be 'no news is good news' for now," analysts at Barclays (LON:BARC) said in a note.
Elsewhere in the sector, United Utilities rose on the back of its results after it posted slightly higher first-half profit, helped by new pricing regulations and lower spending on infrastructure improvements.
It rose 0.7 percent, off highs, as did sector peer Severn Trent (LON:SVT), which reports results on Thursday.
Among mid caps, Thomas Cook surged 7.4 percent after it posted profits slightly ahead of expectations.
It rose to its highest level since May, when it cautioned that security concerns were dampening summer demand - an update which sent shares down 19 percent.
"It was a tough year for the tourist industry, with instability in Turkey and a spate of terror attacks taking their toll," said Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.
"But Thomas Cook’s swift action to shift its holiday programme into the Western Mediterranean and long haul, together with the benefits of a stronger euro, helped it to maintain revenue, and bookings for next summer in its key markets are encouraging."
Online trading firm CMC Markets dropped 4.9 percent after it reported a fall in net operating income in its first half results.