Despite coming off its best levels the FTSE 100 is still in positive territory following an opening rise on Wall Street.
The US market has climbed around 40 points following better than expected employment figures (ahead of the key non-farm payroll numbers tomorrow). Weekly US jobless claims fell unexpectedly last week to the lowest in 14 months, down 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 457,000.
So the FTSE 100 is currently 20.30 points higher at 5347.42, with dealers reporting a programme trade to buy banks and sell miners. Helped also by last nights news that Bank of America planned to repay the $45bn it received under a government bail-out package, Lloyds Banking Group is up 2.76p at 55.86p, Barclays is 11.6p better at 309.1p and Royal Bank of Scotland has risen 1.285p to 34.835p.
Xstrata is leading the fallers, down 21p to £11.27 on the first of two investor days planned for this month, in which the mining group said it planned to nearly double capital expenditure this year.
Meanwhile Lonmin is 30p lower at £18.81 and Rio Tinto is down 36.5p to 3255.5p. Elsewhere the falls in Rightmove continue, with the property website now down 13% - 72.7p lower at 484.8p - on concerns about possible competition from Google.
