Once more the miners came to the rescue. After a volatile day's trading, the FTSE 100 ended firmly in positive territory, making a two-day gain of more than 200 points.
Bid speculation in the likes of Vedanta Resources, although denied, and Anglo American lifted the sector and indeed the FTSE 100. After trading in a 90 point range, the leading index ended 42.9 points higher at 6349.1.
Alliance & Leicester, subject to weeks of speculation about the state of its finances, ended nearly 8% higher as it issued what was taken as a relatively reassuring update.
But pubs were weaker after Mitchells & Butlers warned that a consumer downturn could hit spending in its pubs and restaurants. M&B lost 5.7% to 585.5p, while rivals Punch Taverns, Enterprise Inns and JD Wetherspoon all dropped around 4%.
Other features included leisure group Rank, up 17% on continuing bid speculation, and mobile games group Superscape, 32% higher at 8.75p as it said it was in talks about a cash bid that would be at a premium to last night's closing price.
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