Footsie spent most of the day searching for direction, with bid speculation providing most of the excitement.
With two blockbuster bids announced in as many days in the US, mergers & acquisitions are on the agenda, with BSkyB (LON:BSY) a star turn, as the likes UBS did their best to lure in potential suitors at BSkyB.
The Swiss bank, which is BSkyB’s house broker, named a number of potential M&A scenarios for the pay-TV giant, which it upgraded to ‘buy’.
Rupert Murdoch’s Fox, which already owns 39% of the company, could revisit a merger of its European pay-TV assets to form Sky Europe with BSkyB’s operating assets included in return for a majority stake in the larger entity. Fox walked away from an £8bn bid in 2011.
Investors tuned in to the speculation and sent the shares up 3.8% to 871p. Free-to-air broadcaster ITV (LON:ITV) followed it higher, up 2.2% at 207.3p.
In the drugs sector, AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) perked up after it said it will return to growth sooner than the market expects, while Shire (LON:SHP) was also buzzing after raising earnings guidance for the year just gone.
The strength of these index heavyweights helped the FTSE 100 end the day up 10 at 6,767.
On AIM, ASOS (LON:ASC) shares suffered a bout of profit taking and dived 6.3% to 6,426p despite some more staggering sales figures from the online clothes retailer.
Sales of party dresses, and a TV boost in Germany, helped European sales jump by more than two-thirds to £87mln, with UK sales also surging by 37% to £134mln.
Egdon Resources (LON:EDR) jumped 71% to 25p, after news of Total’s investment in its shale licences in the East Midlands.
IGas (LON:IGAS), which also owns stakes in the licences and will be operating them, rose 8.5% to 137.5p.
Union Jack Oil (LON:UJO) rose 20% to 0.33p in sympathy. The company is partnered with Egdon Resources in a consortium to explore for onshore oil and gas in the UK.
Wildhorse Energy (LON:WHE) powered 15% higher after Hungary rubber stamped underground coal gasification (UCG) by including it as a mining process.
SolGold (LON:SOLG) shares surged 7% after the fifth hole at the Alpala prospect at the Cascabel copper-gold project in Ecuador pointed to a large tonnage, high grade porphyry system.
There was also plenty of buzz surrounding TyraTech (LON:TYR), up 11%, after it said its Vamousse treatment for head lice would be launched at Walmart stores in the US at the end of March.
Improvements across the board at Orosur Mining (LON:OMI, TSE:OMI) have led to positive second quarter results, the firm said. The announcement sent the shares 14% higher.
Clinigen Group (LON:CLIN) advanced 5p to 605p as it extended its exclusive European Union (EU) clinical trial distribution agreement with Accord Healthcare to include capecitabine, an orally administered chemotherapeutic tablet.