Britain's top share index rose sharply on Thursday following strong overnight gains on Wall Street and in Asia, with miners and energy stocks leading the charge buoyed by firmer commodity prices, according to Reuters. By 0803 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 94.45 points, or 1.8 percent, at 5,245.77, bouncing back after three straight sessions of falls. It closed down 0.2 percent on Wednesday. There were no losers on the UK blue chip index. U.S. stocks rallied after pending sales of previously owned U.S. homes topped expectations in April to hit a six-month high, and as investors rushed back to heavily sold sectors such as energy, looking for bargains. Also lifting investors' sentiment, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Wednesday he believed that the May employment report, due on Friday, would show strong growth in U.S. payrolls. UK-listed energy stocks rose along with an advance in crude as the positive mood instilled by the U.S. data reverberated around markets, with BG Group and Royal Dutch Shell both up 1.6 percent. BP, which on Tuesday saw its shares plunge more than 13 percent, added 2.1 percent as it inched ahead in its latest bid to control the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. Miners found favour, rallying in the wake of Wednesday's declines in tandem with a rebound in metals prices, with Eurasian Natural Resources, Kazakhmys and Vedanta Resources among the best off, putting on 3.4 to 3.6 percent. Xstrata, up 2.8 percent, threatened to scrap $5.4 billion in Australian coal and copper projects, blaming a new mining tax and taking the value of new developments put on hold to above $20 billion in just a month. Johnson Matthey, the world's largest supplier of catalytic converters, rose 1.7 percent as it said it expects to make good progress in the first half of 2010/11 after posting a 5 percent dip in annual underlying pretax profit. "The balancing act continues in investors' minds. There's still concern about a difficult macro environment, and potential for further storms ahead," said Henk Potts, market strategist at Barclays Wealth. "But actually on the positive side particularly for equity markets they realise that corporate profitability is bouncing back very strongly. They are also enthusiastic about the fact that companies are offering pretty solid outlook predictions." The FTSE 100 down 3.3 percent so far this year after a 22 percent advance in 2009. WPP GAINS Advertising firm WPP posted solid gains, adding 3.5 percent, bolstered by a UBS upgrade to "buy". Kingfisher climbed 1.8 percent after the home improvements retailer posted a 15 percent rise in first-quarter profit as cost savings and reduced losses in China offset a fall in underlying sales due to poor spring weather. House prices in Britain rose by 0.5 percent in May, half the rate of the previous two months but enough to lift property values within 10 percent of their 2007 peak, a survey by the Nationwide building society showed. Investors were waiting for UK May CIPS services PMI data, scheduled for release at 0828 GMT.
