Small cap shares were beating Footsie at lunch with Ascent Resources Plc (LON:AST), in keeping with the name, topping the London leader board.
Shares were up almost 63% at 3.18p on news of a possible merger with Ukraine focused Cadogan Petroleum.
A stock market statement confirmed that Cadogan had made a ‘highly preliminary’ merger approach, following an earlier sharp rise in Ascent’s price ahead of the Easter break.
Ascent is now up more than 250% in the two trading days since March 23.
On the wider markets, FTSE100 is down 0.11% with blue chip miners taking a big clout, while FTSE AIM 100 is 0.23% higher at 3,332 and FTSE AIM All-share is 0.195 higher at 710.170.
On Footsie, Anglo American (LON:AAL) lost 3.13% to 485.10p, while Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) shed 2.89% and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) lost 3.15% to 753p.
Marks & Spencer (LON:MKS) was the big riser, gaining 2.24% to 401.30p.
Among the small cap winners, was also Cloudbuy (LON: CBUY), which added 16.67% to 7.88p
Last week Roberto Sella, an existing shareholder, conditionally agreed to lend the e-marketplace builder between £.27mln and £5.75mln.
Metal Tiger (LON:MTR) gained over 18% to 2.90p as another warrant exercise took the cash raised by the resource investor through this route to more than £539,000 in just under two weeks.
Some £60,000-worth of warrants were exercised at a price of 1.6p in this latest batch.
Shares in the explorer and resource company investor have more than doubled recently following upbeat drill reports from its 30% joint venture in Botswana.
Gulf Keystone Petroleum Ltd’s (LON:GKP) saw a further 50% wiped off the share price last week but today the stock rebounded almost 18% to 7.25p.
Elsewhere in oil, Mosman Oil & Gas (LON:MSMN) lost almost 13% to 0.675p after it posted half year results, which ran through measure sit is taking to streamline costs.
The group is now considering new acquisitions which could see it add new diversity to a portfolio that has thus far focused down under.
The group, named after an affluent suburb of Sydney, could soon invest in projects located either in the United Kingdom or Brazil, chairman John Barr said in a Proactive Investors interview.
A total of three potential acquisitions are currently being reviewed by Mosman’s skeleton management team as they consider a new 'plan B' following the collapse of a proposed acquisition that had previously promised to ‘transform’ the group.
Months of due diligence was scrapped in February, when the lowest oil prices for a generation spiked the deal to buy the South Taranaki Energy Project (STEP).