The FTSE 100 advanced more than 50 points in the morning session, with the strength of miners comfortably outweighing the weakness of house builders.
The gold price was on the rise again, helped by a weaker dollar, and hit a 13-month high, while silver, copper and platinum joined it on the upward journey, sparking demand for diggers such as Antofagasta, BHP Billiton, Glencore and Anglo American.
February's sharp fall in UK house prices continued to weigh down house builders such as Berkeley Group (LON:BKG) and Taylor Wimpey (LON:TW.), down 2.3% and 2.0% respectively, and was doing no favours either to building materials firm Travis Perkins (LON:TPK).
Bid stock London Stock Exchange (LON:LSE) found the market hard to please after releasing a strong set of results.
The shares shed 32p at 2,861p despite posting a 2% rise in like-for-like sales and a 31% improvement to £643mln in underlying profits.
At 1pm the FTSE 100 was up 59 at 6,189.
Outside of the Footsie, mid-cap defence stock Cobham (LON:COB) was clobbered by JP Morgan Cazenove downgrading it to 'neutral' from 'overweight' while Barclays Capital cut its target price from 330p to 270p albeit while sticking with its 'equal weight' recommendation.
Stocks about to disappear from AIM were a feature, with UMC Energy (LON:UMC), down 64%, and Edge Resources (LON:EDG), down 61%, both announcing plans to exit the junior market, while if offshore energy services provider SeaEnergy (LON:SEA) survives, it looks like it will be in a much reduced state, as it has effectively put itself up for sale, prompting a near halving of the share price.
On the other side of the coin, Monitise (LON:MONI) shot up 49% as it confirmed it is in early stage talks with a party that might be interested in buying its Content business.
Mytrah Energy (LON:MYT), the Indian wind power company, was wanted after Cantor Fitzgerald said yesterday's preliminary results addressed key investor concerns.
“Project delivery is ahead of guidance with an additional 40MW of capacity now due to be ready in time for the 2016 monsoon. A refinancing package reduces the impact of exiting debt and secures funding for the strong development pipeline. We see both of these achievements as materially de-risking our investment case. Faster roll out of assets and lower debt costs leads us to upgrade our forecasts,” the broker said.
The upgraded forecasts prompted a hike in the target price to 130p from 123p. The shares rose 5.5p to 51p.
Open
London's leading shares 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%.