It's an ill wind that blows nobody any good, and the floods across the north of the England have buoyed house builders.
Apart from Hikma (LON:HIK), which is still enjoying the benefits of Boehringer being given the right to appoint a non-executive director to the Hikma board provided it maintains a stake of at least 10%, house builders were the best performing blue chips.
Persimmon (LON:PSN), Berkeley Group (LON:BKG) and Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW.) each rose around 2.3%, while Barratt Developments (LON:BDEV) advanced 1.6%.
With the price of oil remaining in the doldrums heavy fuel users such as airline easyJet (LON:EZJ) and cruise operator Carnival (LON:CCL) were on many investors' shopping lists.
Wealth management stocks such as Hargreaves Lansdown (LON:HL.) and St James's Place (LON:STJ) were also among the top performers.
In contrast, resource stocks remain under the cosh, particularly Anglo American (LON:AAL), Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) and Rio Tinto (LON:RIO).
Investment company FastForward Innovations (LON:FFWD) must have a belter of a web site, because the mere announcement it is up and running increased the share price of the company by more than 10%.
At 2.00pm the FTSE 100 index was up 35 at 6,290.
London open
The druggies featured among the movers on the FTSE 100, which eschewed the pull of the natural resources sector to open in positive territory.
Hikma (LON:HIK) rose 3.5%, with AstraZeneca (LON:AZN) – up 1.15% - and Smith & Nephew (LON:SN) – ahead 1.4% - on the shopping lists of investors looking for a defensive antidote mining, oil and gas.
At 10.30 am, the Footsie was up 0.44% at 6,282.26, putting it on course for a fourth successive day of gains.
Outside the pharma sector, the house builders were in rude health as 2016 is shaping up to be another bumper year for the likes of Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW., Barratt (LON:BDEV) and Persimmon (LON:PSN), which all featured near the top of the stocks benchmark.
Unsurprisingly the losers list was led by the miners, hit by further worries over the demand for staples such as iron ore and copper from China.
Anglo American (LON:AAL) – down almost 7% - led the rout, followed by Antofagasta (LON:ANTO), Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT).
Investors were worried also about the mining majors’ ability to maintain and grow their dividends as they are with Pearson (LON:PSON) – down almost 3% and one of today’s other major casualties.
With Brent and North American crude prices trading in the mid-US$30s Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSA) – down just under 1% - was another drag on the index of blue-chips.
There were some significant movements among the smaller fry too, with 88 Energy (LON:88E) up almost 20% at one point after encouraging early drill data from its Alaska acreage.
Concha (LON:CHA), which is more or less a cash shell these days, was top of the AIM risers with a 25% advance as it continued to scan the market for M&A opportunities. Independent Oil & Gas continued its bounce back after securing funding.
The market’s biggest faller was ZincOx – down 42% after it failed to find the cash that would have allowed it to reschedule its debt. The upshot is the firm is having to hand over 90% of a zinc recycling plant in Korea to its local partner.