The FTSE 100 smashed its way through the 6,700 barrier and did not look back, encouraged by upbeat economic news from mainland Europe and China.
The FTSE 100 closed 13 points below its intra-day high at 6,752, up 66 points, or 1.0%, on the day, with miners leading the way, possibly as a result of some short-covering ahead of results from Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) tomorrow.
Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) topped the bill with a 3.9% rise after Liberum Capital abandoned its bearish position and moved to a neutral stance,
Asia-focused bank Standard Chartered (LON:STAN) has an up-and-down day, ending it just 0.2% higher, as investors weighed up progress on restructuring and the halving of the dividend.
Elsewhere in the legal sector, insurer Legal & General (LGEN) increased 7.3p to 270.7p on news of an 18% rise in operating profit to £750mln and a 19% rise in the interim dividend.
Merger activity seems to be all the rage in the pharma sector at the moment, and the latest whisper is that US giant Pfizer, thwarted a while back in its attempt to buy AstraZeneca (LON:AZN), may have a crack at GlaxoSmithKline (LON:GSK) instead.
Dealers were also talking about a potential competing bid from Swiss giant Novartis, although it is thought that would only happen if fellow Swiss company Roche was to agree to buy parts of Glaxo after a deal.
Despite its failure to buy AstraZeneca, Pfizer is still believed to be keen on a major takeover to boost its sales.
In May, Deutsche Bank (DB) said Pfizer would benefit from a Glaxo acquisition, which the German broker dubbed as "Pfizerkline".
It would increase Pfizer's earnings and allow it to unlock its balance sheet and improve its tax position, DB analyst Gregg Gilbert said in a note.
The talk comes in the wake of takeover activity in the sector that most recently included a US$30bn approach from Britain's Shire for US group Baxalta.
While Shire's shares have risen to 5,450p from 1,496p five years ago, Glaxo's shares have only risen a few pounds, from about 1,177p in August 2010 to about 1,419p today.
The lack of upward movement in its shares has led some to highlight Glaxo as being ripe for a takeover.
In March, Glaxo bought Novartis's global vaccines business for US$5.25bn in a deal that created a consumer health joint venture with the Swiss group.; in return, Novartis bought Glaxo's oncology operation for US$16bn.
Among the small caps, Tern (LON:TERN) was wanted, rising 37% to 5.75p, after it said the value of its portfolio has risen more than four-fold over the past 12 months.
Shares in Filtronic (LON:FTC) jumped on news a technical issue with its antennas had been solved and a tooling contract signed with a major telecoms group.
The shares closed at 9.75p, up 30%.
Elsewhere, Rosslyn Data Technologies (LON:RDT) revealed it had won a contract with an unnamed Fortune 500 company that will replace its own analytics platform with Rosslyn’s RAPid Cloud-based system.
Rosslyn’s chief executive Charles Clarke called the deal an “excellent step forward” and shares climbed 1.62p or 14% to 12.88p.