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Shares rallied from opening falls today after several billion pounds' worth of takeovers were dangled in front of City speculators in order to whet their appetites.
Friends Provident jumped 6.23p to 66.63p after rejecting an offer worth almost 71p a share from Resolution.
Meanwhile, shares in Venture Production were marked 43p up to 828p at the start of trading after the explorer rejected the terms of a hostile £1.3 billion takeover by Centrica, up 3½p at 221¾p, which was continuing to add to its stake in the marketplace today.
The British gas operator already holds 29% of Venture and now plans to make an offer worth 845p for the rest of the shares to boost its gas reserves.
But the Venture board is reckoned to be holding out for at least 900p a share with brokers such as Evo Securities claiming Centrica may have to offer up to 950p a share to get the backing of the Venture board.
Cannacord Adams has lifted its target from Venture from 725p to 845p and has repeated its hold rating.
Oil and gas explorer Emerald Energy leapt 70½p to 631p after receiving a takeover approach from an unnamed party. The company says the talks are at a preliminary stage. One name being bandied around as a potential suitor is Canadian outfit Tierra Energy.
Emerald shares have more than doubled in value during the past nine months. The company has interests in Syria and its biggest shareholder is Waterford Finance & Investment which holds 29.4% of the company.
Shares generally rallied from opening falls, but investors continued to make heavy weather of things. The FTSE 100 index rose 57.99 to 4185.16 in wafer-thin trading conditions.
Wall Street gathered pace after a cautious start to trading this afternoon ahead of results from Goldman Sachs. The Dow Jones rose 36.65 to 8183.17.
Sentiment was not helped by another sell-off among miners. Rio Tinto, which has seen a number of its staff arrested in China on spying charges, traded above its worst levels of the day with a loss of just 16½p at 1885p.
There were also losses for Lonmin, down 29p at 970p, and Xstrata, off 18.10p at 578.9p.
Anglo American rose 8p to 1661½p. RBC Capital Markets is prepared to give new chairman John Parker the benefit of the doubt.
It believes he will "steady the ship" at AA, which has just rejected a takeover approach from Xstrata.
Looks like Evolution Securities may be lagging behind the curve in Kazakhmys, down 17p at 577p. It has jacked up its target price from a lowly 190p to 450p, but continues to rate the shares a sell.
Vodafone remains one of the heaviest-weighted stocks in the Footsie 100 index, but not everyone is a fan of the world's biggest mobile phone operator.
Société Générale has repeated its sell rating on the shares and trimmed its target price from 110p to 100p. The shares were changing hands 2.4p better at 114.65p.
The latest trading update from Kier Group got the thumbs-up from the City and the shares responded with a rise of 5½p to 854p.
The construction group says full-year underlying profits will meet current market expectations thanks to a high level of public-sector contracts.
Another company doing well from public-sector spending is Bob Holt's Mears Group, ¾p lighter at 227½p.
The social housing contractor has just clinched a 10-year, £200 million contract with Brighton & Hove City Council to provide housing stock upgrades, repairs and maintenance services. This takes the total new contracts won by Mears in the current year to almost £400 million.
Construction group Galliford Try shaded ½p to 47¾p after Cazenove cut its rating from in-line to underperform.
Only last week the group said it saw encouraging signs for a second-half recovery. That prompted RBS to repeat its long-term buy rating.
Keefe, Bruyette Woods has been looking at the insurance brokers and adjusted some of its target prices.
It has raised Hiscox, 4¾p easier at 288p, from 335p to 345p and Amlin, 2¾p down at 304½p, from 340p to 355p, but it has cut Catlin, unmoved on 293½p, from 460p to 420p and lowered its rating for the shares from outperform to market perform.
It has dropped Brit Insurance, up 2p at 181p, from 240p to 220p with an underperform rating.
Beazley, unmoved on 99¾p, has been lowered from 180p to 165p. Hiscox is down from market perform to underperform.
