Upbeat German data and optimism over the key US non-farm jobs figure later sent UK shares higher at the lunchtime point.
FTSE100 was up over 41 points at 6,720 at the time of writing after losing ground Thursday, with testing specialist Intertek (LON: ITRK) the biggest gainer, adding 3.36%.
It came as the crash test dummies group Intertek received a double dose of good news from two of the City’s leading brokers.
Both UBS and Deutsche Bank said the recent share price weakness was overdone as they each moved to ‘buy’ on the stock.
German factory orders surprised to the upside as they went north by 2.5% in October after an upwardly revised 1.1% gain in September, surprising analysts who had expected a gain of just 0.5%.
Investors are being buoyed by optimism on the US jobs read later today, although signs have thus far been mixed.
On Wednesay, payroll firm ADP said the private sector added 208,000 jobs last month, against forecasts for more than 220,000.
That is no firm indication of today's number but is a guide. Economists expect around 230,000 jobs to have been created in November. The number has come in above 200,000 for the past nine months.
Resource stocks were in the losing camp as the week ended with oil services giant Petrofac (LON:PFC) the biggest laggard, down over 2% and gold mining major Randgold (LON:RRS), also down over 2%.
Elsewhere, in the junior sector, Cloudbuy (LON:CBUY) was a standout riser after the e-procurement marketplace provider clinched a deal with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
The CII has called on Cloudbuy to develop a global platform to support the trading activities of the more than 7,000 members that the CII has across the world.
Proxama (LON:PROX) shares nudged up a little as it finalised the fine details of its acquisition of Aconite Technology, a provider of Europay, Mastercard and Visa transaction processing.
Richland Resources (LON:RLD) gained over 7% as it received US$510,000 from the buyer of its tanzanite operation to be held in escrow until the various regulatory approvals come through.
The sale, to Sky Associates, will be for a net consideration of around US$4.95mln and Richland will post a profit on it of approximately US$490,000.
Kibo Mining (LON:KIBO) added over 18% after gaining yesterday. Earlier this week, the company revealed the final report concerning the first stage of its definitive mining feasibility study for the Rukwa coal-to-power project (RCPP) has been completed.
SerVision (LON:SEV), the security tech firm, was also up on the day, adding 15.38%.