Lloyds (LON:LLOY) was big news on Monday, but then again Britain's biggest banks are never far from the headlines.
As well as being among the top five Footsie gainers, the group was gaining traction in webworld over news of its share sale to private investors.
The state now owns 19% of the bank having sold of another 1% and in a 'Back to the Future' 198os style move the bank now plans to sell more shares over the coming year.
Under the Conservative gov't of Margaret Thatcher, the UK sold billions of pounds worth of shares in assets like BT and British Gas.
Now, the current Tory government is determined to get Lloyds back into private hands after it was bailed out during the meltdown in 2008.
UK Financial Investments (UKFI), which manages the Treasury's stake, has extended a plan to allow Lloyds shares to be sold off beyond its current June 30 deadline.
Also on the news agenda was detail on the latest UK manufacturing data, and it wasn't pleasant reading.
The survey showed that Britain's manufacturing sector grew more slowly than expected last month (May)as solid domestic demand was offset by weak overseas.
In small caps, Sunrise Resources (LON:SRES) rocketed almost 43% after it found bonanza grades of silver in underground samples at its Bay State project in Nevada.
The 18 samples were taken from the Chihuahua vein in an area previously inaccessible due to a rock-fall.
Average grades were over 1kg/tonne (kilogram per tonne) silver (1,123 grams per tonne or 33 ounces per tonne) along 230 metres (m) strike length to the end of the adit.
Another strong riser was Real Good Food (LON:RGD), which added 8.62% to 47.25p after an upbeat pre-close statement following the recent sale of its wholesale sugar arm Napier Brown for £34mln.
Now focused on cake decoration (Renshaw, Rainbow Dust Colours), food ingredients (Garrett Ingredients and R&W Scott) and premium bakery ingredients (Haydens), sales in the year to March were £104mln and underlying profits £5.3mln.
Renshaw and Haydens, in particular, traded well, RGD said, helped by the boom in home baking and artisan bakeries