LONDON (ShareCast) - Past performance is no guarantee of futures returns, but it may nevertheless pay to be aware of certain typical trading patterns, especially if you happen to own shares in Severn Trent or National Grid.
Given the recent price action in financial markets - with the FTSE 100 down 6% from its peak and the Dax 12% lower - in a research note e-mailed to clients on 16 June analysts at Citi took a look at how individual utilities tend to perform during broader market corrections.

On average, the DJ Stoxx 600 utilities sector (SX6P) tends to outperform the market (SXXP) by approximately 0.4%.

However, French, German and Austrian names underperform under such conditions by about 3%, RWE and Engie the most often and Veolia and RWE by the widest margin.

Southern European utilities tend to outperform by about 1%.

UK utilities, on the other hand, "almost always outperform and significantly, by more or less 6%".

Centrica and Severn have done so the most times, but it is Severn Trent and National Grid who have outperformed (both in the Uk and in the sector) by the most in the past, analysts Sofia Savvantidou, Antonella Bianchessi and Akhil Bhatter said.

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