The FTSE 100 made a decent start to the week as it looked to steady itself after a rollercoaster few days.
The blue-chip index was up 18 at 7,484 in early trades.
Ryanair has warned further turbulence in the summer to make up for its current reduced prices caused by a slump in bookings due to omicron. The low-budget airline reported a quarterly loss of €96mln.
Virgin Media O2 aims to raise hundreds of millions from investors to fund the rollout of fast fibre broadband to 7mln more British households. The external capital injection could eventually total £1bn as it aims to rival BT Group's Openreach arm.
Conservative MPs are urging Boris Johnson to “go back to the drawing board” over a planned 1.25 percentage point National Insurance tax hike in April. They believe he should raise taxes on large business instead to help fund the NHS and social care.
Among the small caps, Next Fifteen Communications Group said it would beat full year market expectations as it continued to see growth across all segments. Revenue was up 34% year-on-year up to January 31.
Mosman Oil has completed testing of the Winters-2 well in Texas, in which it owns a 23% stake. Winters-2 will now be put on production once the installation of gas infrastructure is completed, expected later in the current quarter.
Technology Minerals joint venture Recyclus has opened its first lead-acid battery recycling centre. The plant, at Tipton in the West Midlands, is scheduled to start operations next week with a processing rate of 16,000 tonnes in the first full year of production rising to around 80,000 tonnes by 2027.