This Thursday lunchtime shares remained higher at midday. The FTSE 100 was above the 6,100 level, the index was up 14.8 points at 6,104.6.

Volume was ok, with 1.064 billion shares changing hands in 116,918 deals.


All eyes are on the open of Wall Street as New York's benchmark contract for light sweet crude for May delivery hit an all-time peak of $72.49.


The London market welcomed a set of benign UK inflation data, which saw the annual CPI rate fall to 1.8%, raising the chances that interest rates may be cut later in the year. The Footsieblog believes interest rates will be cut in the 4th quarter of this year.


Still headlining the news we saw more buoyant commodity prices continuing to stoke inflationary concerns, with oil and metal prices hitting fresh highs once again this morning.


This afternoon’s look at individual Stocks:


BP climbed 9p to 713.00p, Royal Dutch Shell was up 5p to 2,009p, BG Group gained 13p to 780.00p and Cairn Energy saw gains of 50p to 2,317p


In the commodity sector miners, saw further gains across gold, silver and copper prices helped by Xstrata which added another 30p to 2,096p while Antofagasta climbed 5p higher to 2,415p boosted by a Credit Suisse upgrade to 'outperform' from 'neutral', with the Swiss owned broker also raising targets across the sector. Rio Tinto however, bucked the trend and was down 49p at 3,144p after saying most of its mines and plants operated at or near capacity in the March quarter to take advantage of strong metal prices.


International Power has been in the news this morning and so far has managed to remain higher; the stock is currently up 1p to 305.00p after announcing that its wholly owned subsidiary American National Power Inc had agreed to acquire the 632 megawatt coal-fired Coleto Creek Power generation plant from Topaz Power Group.


A positive set of numbers lifted Prudential, up a modest 1p at 669.00p, off earlier highs, after the insurer delivered a better than expected 27% increase in first-quarter sales, helped by strong growth in its Asian business. In response to this statement, UBS reiterated its 'neutral' advice, warning the performance in the UK was relatively weak, with UK and European volumes up 17% at 244 million compared to expectations of between 219-303 million.
Other insurers Friends Provident climbed by 2p at 200.00p and Legal and General saw gains of 1p at 142.00p


Meanwhile, telecom giant and most actively traded stock Vodafone gained 1p to 127.00p, as its Italian unit, ‘Vodafone Italia’ signed a mobile TV content deal with Mediaset SpA, expected to launch during 2006.


A strong set of first-quarter numbers from mobile phone giant Nokia also lent support to the telecoms sector this morning, although second line handset chip stocks and portfolio favourite CSR benefited more, up 26p pence to 1,293p


Rising fuel prices were also a concern for the cruise operators.

British Airways eased 1p to 339.00p, on news that it will today throw down the gauntlet to low cost airlines EasyJet, which also saw its stock loose 5p at 315.00p by slashing prices from Heathrow and Gatwick to almost all its European short-haul destinations. BA will cut fares to places such as Berlin, Paris and Barcelona by up to 50%. Good news for holiday travellers.


Old lady market gossip of an 820p Goldman Sachs-led private equity offer lifted AB Ports 39p higher to 739.00p. The group had previously rejected an offer of 730.00p back in March.
Bid speculation also lifted GCap Media, which lifted the stock 14p at 238.00p with Macquarie rumoured as the potential suitor.


The downside, JJB Sports reported a ‘disappointing' drop in pre-tax profits for the year to January 29th 2006.

The company’s profit came in at £33.7m from £62.5m the previous year.
The fall came after a period of challenging trading for the sports retailer and on the back of a 3.6% slide in total sales to £745.2m from £773.3m. Like for like sales for the year were down 4.3%. The footsieblog rates this stock as a sell.


One last piece of news this morning and something to watch out for, Debenhams, the UK department store retailer taken over by a private consortium of venture capitalists in December 2003, has confirmed it plans to re-join the London Stock Exchange.

The company will make an initial public offering (IPO) that will value the group at £1.675bn to £1.95bn.
The retailer has set the price range for the float at 195p-250p a share.


The portfolio so far today:

CSR (CSR) is up 2.21% - 28p at 1295.00p. CSR briefly touched 1300.00p this morning.
The Carphone Warehouse (CPW) is up 0.47% - 1.50p at 320.00p

Fenner (FENR) up 0.35% - 0.75p at 218.00p
Wolfson (WLF) is still continuing its downward trend to stand at midday down 4.64% - 19.75p at 405.25p

Tullow Oil (TLW) is on the way up, up and up due to the rising oil prices standing up 2.12% - 8.50p at 409.75p