London's leading shares have opened on the front foot, but with an air of caution ahead of today's US jobs data.
"A payrolls increase of 195k is expected, marking an improvement from January’s lacklustre 151k gain. The pace of wage inflation and the jobless rate are seen holding unchanged from the prior month at 2.5 and 4.9 percent, respectively,” noted Ilya Spivak, a currency strategist at DailyFX.
The FTSE 100 was up 26 points at 6,156, with mining stocks leading the way.
Top of the tree was commodities trader and miner Glencore (LON:GLEN), up 5%, with similar rises also seen on sector peers Antofagasta (LON:ANTO) and Anglo American (LON:AAL).
Low-cost airline easyJet (LON:EZJ) was flying high, up 3.2% at 1,532p after releasing passenger statistics for February.
The number of passengers carried was up 9.8% from a year earlier, though it is worth noting that February had an extra day this time round because 2016 is a leap year.
Sitting at the wrong end of the Footsie tree was asset management firm Schroders (LON:SDR), which upset the City yesterday with its plans to anoint chief executive Peter Dobson as its new chairman.
Citigroup has downgraded the stock to 'neutral' from 'buy', while Barclays Capital has cut its price target from 3,140p to 2,900p. The shares tumbled 112p to 2,626p.
Also in the doghouse is FTSE 250 stock Redefine International (LON:RDI), despite JP Morgan Cazenove upgrading the stock to 'neutral' from 'underweight' after the property group completed the acquisition yesterday of the second tranche of the Aegon UK portfolio.
Among the small caps, Caza Oil & Gas (LON:CAZA) rose sharply for the third day in a row. The shares, which rose from 0.42p to 0.60p on Wednesday and then to 0.85p on Thursday were up 38% to 1.17p on Friday morning, smashing through the penny barrier.
Elsewhere in the resources space, Amur Minerals (LON:AMC) was lifted by news it had signed an outline agreement with the Russian government's Far East and Baikal Region Development Fund that could expand the financing options for its flagship Kun-Manie nickel sulphide project in the east of the country.
The shares shot up 28.3% to 8.5p.
Sector peer European Metals Holdings (LON:EMH) pushed 1.5p higher to 8.75p after Rare Earth Minerals (LON:REM) said it had bought an additional 7.9% of the company by participating in a share placing that raised just over £912,000 for EMH.
Shares in Rare Earth eased 3.5% to 0.55p after it splashed out £670,000 on the shares. The increased stake indirectly adds to its exposure in the Cinovec lithium deposit in the Czech Republic, with Rare Earth's holding in EMH now up to 19.8%.
Solgold (LON:SOLG) was another mining stock enjoying a good day, with the shares up 12.1% at 2.78p on the back of an exploration update at its Cascabel project in the Andean copper belt.
Drill hole 16 continues to encounter intense porphyry style copper-gold mineralisation at the Alpala deposit in Northern Ecuador, the company revealed.
Away from the resources sector, Gear4Music (LON:G4M) was hitting all the high notes, rising 9p to 140.5p following a well-received trading update.
The largest UK based online retailer of musical instruments and music equipment rocked the Casbah in 2015, with a 46% increase in sales, driven by a 73% increase in European sales.
On the downside, UMC Energy (LON:UMC) had investors stampeding for the exits as it said it is proposing to cancel its listing on Aim. He shares lost almost two-thirds of their value.
Preview
The Footsie is set to continue yesterday afternoon's revival, albeit with an element of caution ahead of US jobs figures today.
Spread betting quotes point to the FTSE 100 opening at around 6,157, after closing at 6,130 last night.
US markets were firmer overnight, with the S&P 500 rising 0.4% to 1,993 and the Dow Jones average up 0.3% at 16,944, though the Nasdaq Composite barely finished in positive territory, up four points at 4,707.
Heading into the last hour of trading Asian markets were mostly on the up. In Japan, the Nikkei 250 was up 35 points at 17,015 while in Hong Kong the Hang Seng was 145 points higher at 20,087.
In the UK, advertising and marketing colossus WPP (LON:WPP) reported another record year with reported revenue up 6.1% at £12.24bn in 2015.
Bid target London Stock Exchange (LON:LSE) reported revenue in 2015 was up 11% year-on-year on a continuing operations basis.
Passenger statistics for February from easyJet (LON:EZJ) showed a 9.8% year-on-year increase in passengers carried, although the load factor – a measure of how full the aircraft are – eased to 90.5% from 90.9%.