Britain's index of leading shares was up Thursday at midday with High Street bellwether Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) the top gainer.
The retailer was up 2.77% as it unveiled a quarterly trading statement, which showed a rise in sales in the first three months of this year. The figures were the company's the best quarterly sales numbers for two years.
The store's strong performance helped the index of leading shares rise 0.11%, or 6.96 points - to 6,394 - making it the fourth straight day of gains.
Joining Marks in the top five was also Rolls-Royce (LON:RR.), UP 2.27% as the engineering giant continued its good run.
In FTSE 250, oil engineering firm Petrofac (LON:PFC) shares rose after Petrofac Emirates, its joint venture with Mubadala Petroleum was awarded a contract for a field development in Abu Dhabi.
Petrofac's share of the contract is valued at US$2.9 billion contract.
In the junior space, markets were also doing well with FTSE AIM 100 up around 13 to 3296 and FTSE Fledgling up 7.46 to 5250.
On FTSE AIM 100 the top riser was Bellzone Mining (LON:BZM), up 7.7% to 5.25p.
Among the small caps, risers included African agricultural producer Agriterra (LON:AGTA), which rose 1.39%, after it said it was expanding and accelerating the development of its cocoa farming operations in Sierra Leone.
The firm expects to have fully planted the 1,200 hectare site, acquired in February this year, by the end of the fourth quarter of 2014 and has bought further land on top, it told investors.
Sticking to the Africa theme, Afferro Mining (LON:AFF) was up 2.33% today.
Aminex (LON:AEX) was up 2.98% while Baobab (LON:BAO) was up 4.17%.
Blur Group (LON:BLUR) was up over 7% as it was announced today that Octopus Investments has raised its stake in the firm above the 3% level in the wake of the business services provider’s 2012 results announced this week.
Enegi Oil (LON:ENEG) shares also rose 7.32% after it announced the restart of oil sales from the Garden Hill South operation in Newfoundland.
This comes as a new sustained production process has been established at the project.
Gulfsands Petroleum (LON:GPX) rose 3.26%. Earlier the company said that Mahdi Sajjad would replace chief executive Ric Malcolm who is resigning.
Other notable risers today are Jubilee Platinum (LON:JLP), up 27% and Zanaga Iron Ore (LON: ZIOC), up 8.82%.