Shares were sharply higher at midday, but just short of the 6,000 mark, as strong gains in Kazakhmys helped mining stocks advance and Boots climbed on well-received sales news.

However, blue chips were flirting with the 6000 level all morning.


Looking ahead to Wall Street this afternoon, US stocks are expected to open lower with investors taking profits following recent gains.


There appears to be no stopping the shares of mortgage lender Alliance & Leicester, which today extended this week's strong run with a rise of 38p, or 3%, to 1228p on talk of a foreign takeover. Alliance & Leicester was tight-lipped despite reports it had rejected a 1300p a share offer from France's Crédit Agricole and was being courted by Spain's Banco Santander Central Hispano. I think it is holding out for 1500p a share offer.


The talk lifted the whole sector with Northern Rock up 22p at 1,164p, Standard Chartered 6p higher at 1,463p, Lloyds TSB 1p at 553p and HSBC 5p at 963p


Kazakhmys jumped 65.5p to 1,019.5p, to hit new record highs after the copper miner posted a sharp increase in its full-year earnings.


Boots Group rose 2.6% to 731p after a strong fourth quarter trading update revealed like for like sales growth of 2.2 per cent at the high street chemist chain.


On the downside this morning, the London Stock Exchange dropped 103p to 1,018p after US rival Nasdaq withdrew its proposed 950p per share offer for the group.
Although the Nasdaq has withdrawn its proposed offer for the LSE it is still very attractive, London is becoming the world’s favourite exchange, pulling in far more overseas new issues than the American markets.


Burren Energy (one of my portfolio stocks) also traded lower, down 54p at 899p, after the company's announcement of a cut in oil reserve estimates for the M'Boundi field outweighed a robust set of full-year results, dealers said. The current share price stands at 905p, shorter’s target was 860p, which was achieved this morning, the share price should move higher from here.


Stock tip:

Hanson Group (HNS). Hanson could soon be the world’s largest aggregates producer. The current share price stands at 768p, there has been heavy volume in the stock just recently and rumours are surfacing that Hanson could be a potential bid target shortly. The target bid price could be in the region of 900p a share, a huge premium on the current price. Rumours have it that the bid could come from Lafarge.