Leading shares are holding onto their gains, and now there is a bit of bid speculation to keep the pot boiling.
Oil explorer Cairn Energy has displaced Cadbury Schweppes at the top of the leading index. Its shares are up 6% to £29.34 on talk of possible interest from Italian group Eni. A figure of £40 a share is being mentioned.
That has helped the FTSE 100 rise 67.3 points to 5696.4.
Elsewhere, a couple of interesting posts on the US economy. David Malpass, chief economist at Bear Stearns, has written in the Wall Street journal suggesting President Bush should speak out for a stronger dollar in a speech due this Friday.
But this gets short shrift from commentator Barry Ritholtz. In a blog headed Fantasy based economics he argues that any comments from the outgoing president would be irrelevant to the market. Hard to disagree with this, really.
And here is an indication of how bad things got for the US market - specifically the S&P 500 - in previous downturns. Are we looking at something similar this time?
