Despite a fall in miners after copper and aluminium dropped to near six month lows on demand concerns, the FTSE 100 has managed to show a 19.6 point gain to 5517.0
A dip in the oil price by $2 to $113 has lifted the market, with travel, leisure and retail shares all moving ahead.
Bus and train business FirstGroup is 22p higher at 580p while British Airways is 7.25p better at 261p on further consideration of its alliance with American Airlines and Iberia.
Reasonable weekly sales figures from John Lewis lifted Marks & Spencer 9.25p to 275p and Next 32p to £10.41.
Kaupthing analysts said: "John Lewis figures for last week show that the department store division increased sales by 9.3% partly against a softer comparison but also reflecting mixed weather that helped drive footfall into the stores.
"Disappointing sales figures from Waitrose (+0.8%) will put the spotlight on M&S again where similar trading down effects are likely to impacting performance. Waitrose's 'As good as going out' campaign (similar to Dine in for £10 at M&S) is up 43% though, and we believe the comparable M&S initiative is performing more strongly than that."
Leisure group Whitbread climbed 34p to £11.83 after a positive note from Morgan Stanley which has a £17 price target on the company.
Even the London Stock Exchange, which has been hit hard recently by concerns about competition, recovered 28p to 825p. Today sees the start of - fairly limited - trading by Turquoise, the rival platform set up by a number of investment banks.
So despite a fall in miners after copper and aluminium dropped to near six month lows on demand concerns, the FTSE 100 has managed to show a 19.6 point gain to 5517.0.
After yesterday's rises, Kazakhmys is now down 58p to £12.04 while Vedanta Resources has slipped 75p to £17.31.
