Property developers and energy stocks helped lift the FTSE 100 index this afternoon, its third consecutive day of gains.
On a quiet day for corporate news, British Land was one of the biggest risers ahead of results next Tuesday, up 13.5p to 498.2p, a gain of 2.8%. Liberty International was 19p ahead at 504p, a near-4% rise on the day. Hammerson rose 10.1p to 445p, up 2.3%.
Central London landlord Great Portland Estates saw its shares jump earlier this week after reporting an increase in net asset value per share, and clocked another 2.2% rise to 290p today after Credit Suisse upgraded it to overweight from neutral.
"Yield recompression of 39 basis points in the second quarter was the main driver of positive like-for-like portfolio revaluation," the broker said.
"This trend is consistent with our view that rental value depreciation in offices will have run its course by the first half of 2010," it added.
Natural gas producer BG Group was also among the biggest gainers, closing up 22.5p at £11.05, a gain of 2.1%, after disclosing a discovery at a new well off the coast of Brazil.
Shares of British Airways rose 2p, or 0.9%, to 217p after agreeing to join forces with Spain's Iberia in a £4.3bn merger following 16 months of talks.
The FTSE closed up 19.88 points at 5296.38, a 0.38% gain. In the US, the Dow Jones industrial average traded 79.43 points higher at 10,276.90, a rise of nearly 0.8%.
The US market was boosted by better-than-expected earnings from teen clothing retailer Abercrombie & Fitch and an improved outlook from department-store chain JC Penney, which reinforced hopes that consumer spending - the mainstay of the American economy - is recovering.
However, any stock gains were limited by a weak consumer confidence reading. The Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment fell to 66.0 in November, from 70.6 in October.
In Europe, there was a muted reaction to the news that the eurozone pulled out of recession, after posting third-quarter GDP up 0.4%.
