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Next week's FTSE reshuffle should mark a glorious start for Xavier Rolet, the new chief executive of the London Stock Exchange.
The LSE is expected to regain its position among the blue-chips along with plumbing and builders' merchant Wolseley and private-equity house 3i. The Exchange was embarrassingly booted out of the top flight in March after its shares plummeted but sentiment has since improved on signs that the markets are stabilising and equities will once again be the investment of choice. Today its shares added 10p to 781½p.
The review will also be a rare bit of good news for 3i and Wolseley, whose shares have sunk in the past three weeks. Today 3i was up 8p to 233p after falling heavily yesterday. Talk was that some investors are dumping some of their shares to fund taking up its cash call. Wolseley added 14p to 1079p.
Whitbread, the cheap restaurants-to-budget hotels group, insurer Amlin and fund manager Foreign & Colonial look set to get the boot at the review, which will be based on next Tuesday's closing prices.
The FTSE 100 gained 65.55 points to 4452.49 as the heavyweight mining shares led the index higher. Despite the Labour Party's disintegration offering some distraction, and eyes were mostly turned to the US ahead of the release of May's jobs report, with investors praying for further evidence of green shoots in the world's biggest economy. Economists expect the non-farm payrolls to show the smallest decline in seven months, although the unemployment rate is tipped to rise to 9.2%.
News that Rio Tinto has spurned Chinalco for a fling with its major rival BHP Billiton put a rocket under mining shares. Rio jumped 270p to 2990p as it also unveiled a rights issue to raise $15.2 billion (£9.5 billion), but it was BHP that claimed the crown among blue-chips, soaring 149p to 1605p. Miners claimed all the top spots on the Footsie winner's board, with Kazakhmys gaining 38p to 700p, Lonmin adding 74p to 1484p and Vedanta Resources 81p higher at 1607p.
HSBC added ¼p to 531½p as UBS upped its price target for the shares by 50p to 675p and reiterated its buy rating. The broker now reckons that losses from Household and bad debts will be smaller than initially thought, boosting earnings per share by a quarter.
Fiberweb, a supplier of non-woven fabrics, rose 2¾p to 62¾p on talk the Jerry Zucker Revocable Trust has offloaded its 10% stake. It is said to have been snapped up by 10 institutions.
Positive economic news led Wall Street higher, the Dow closing up 74.96 at 8750.24. The number of jobless workers filing new benefits claims fell 4000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 621,000. That is third straight week of falls. Dealers said US non-farm activity was much stronger than initially estimated in the first quarter.
Financials and energy companies led the way higher. Goldman Sachs put on almost 5% at $148.88 after Sanford Bernstein raised its rating to outperform. There was also support for Morgan Stanley, up 5% at $31.26.
Far East trading was mixed. Tokyo blue-chips closed a touch firmer, buoyed by some demand for resource and energy shares amid high commodity prices as the upbeat US economic news. Mizuho Financial Group and other banks climbed after their US rivals gained ground on a sector upgrade by RBC Capital Markets. Canon was up on news it was reviving shelved plans to build a new factory. But analysts said gains were limited ahead of US non-farm payroll data.
The Nikkei 225 Average finished up 73.12 points at 9742.08.
In Hong Kong, energy shares soared as oil prices stayed above $69 a barrel after hitting a seven-month high yesterday, and on the encouraging US data.
Offshore oil specialist CNOOC was up 3.6% while oil and gas producer PetroChina was 2.6% firmer. China Resources Power Holdings fell 1.3% to HK$17.68 after revealing plans for a rights issue to enhance its capital base and pay for future acquisitions.
The company said it would issue up to 432.27 million shares on the basis of one for every 10 existing shares held at HK$14 per share, or a 21.9% discount to yesterday's closing price of HK$17.92.
The Hang Seng index was down 40.01 points at 18,462.76.
