A slight recovery in oil prices helped London shares to pare losses on Tuesday as drug industry takeover activity provided interest.
A barrel of US light crude rose back towards US$46, prompting oil majors to recover ground lost earlier in the session.
BP (LON:BP.) slipped 1.2p to 390.25p, Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSB) retreated 1p to 1831p and BG Group (LON:BG.) deflated 4.5p to 1086.5p.
The FTSE 100 Index steadied to stand 12.4 points adrift at 6676 in early trading.
Precious metal miners also bounced back as gold prices moved up slightly to about US$1,090 an ounce.
Randgold Resources (LON:RRS) eliminated earlier losses with a 40p increase to 3826p. Mexican silver miner Fresnillo (LON:FRES), which had half-year results out on Tuesday, rebounded 12p to 645p.
On the economic front, builders subsided on mixed house price and construction industry figures.
Economic research group Markit and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply released numbers showing a slowdown in UK construction output growth in July amid a weaker rise in housing activity.
But there was slightly more upbeat news from building society Nationwide, which showed house prices rising by a relatively modest 0.4% month-on-month in July after a surprise dip of 0.2% in June.
Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV) dropped 3.5p to 628p, Persimmon (LON:PSN) reversed 7p to 2023p and Redrow (LON:RDW) backtracked 1.1p to 463p.
Back in the markets, shares in Shire declined 215p to 5515p as the pharmaceutical group (LON:SHP) urged US peer Baxalta to reconsider its refusal to enter talks over a US$30bn merger.
Insurer Admiral (LON:ADM) climbed 9p to 1499p on market talk of a potential bid at between 1650p and 1700p a share.
Direct Line (LON:DLG) also boosted sentiment in the sector by pointing to modest price rises in the motor insurance market. Its shares advanced 4.9p to 370.9p.
Royal Bank of Scotland backtracked 2.2p to 335.4p after the UK government sold about 5.4% of the state-owned bank (LON:RBS).
Just Eat (LON:JE.) lost early gains to stand 1.8p off at 436p as the online takeaway service posted a rise in orders near the top end of expectations.
In small cap news, shares in ECR Minerals (LON:ECR) rose for the second day in a row after it raised £250,000 before costs through a placing and subscription. Shares were 16% higher to 0.07p.
David Lenigas’s agriculture venture AfriAg (LON:AFRI) told investors it had ‘another strong performance’ in the first half of 2015. Shares were flat at 0.34p.
Meanwhile, Xtract Resources (LON:XTR) has intersected a second high grade gold reef system at the Colin target at Chepica in Chile.
The new find, Reef System B, follows the earlier discovery of a system that graded at 4.2 grams per tonne over a 3.5 metres width and may significantly extend the area’s mine life. Shares rose 6% to 0.26p.
It wasn’t all good news, however, as Armour Group (LON:AMR) said its shares will be suspended from tomorrow.
The cash shell has not yet been able to make the transformation to an investment company and shares plummeted 34% to 3.12p.