London shares got a gold medal bounce on Thursday, opening higher in the wake of Britain's first victories of the Olympics and some strong corporate results.
The benchmarket FTSE 100 index gained 14.79 points or 0.26 percent to 5,727.61 at 9:49 am.
The London market outperformed continental European bourses after Bradley Wiggins snatched gold in the men's cycling time trial and Helen Glover and Heather Stanning won on the water in the women's rowing pairs.
A slew of corporate second quarter earnings figures was led by medical equipment maker Smith & Nephew, which reported a 6 percent rise in trading profit and 2 percent improvement in sales.
It also announced a 50 percent increased in the quarterly dividend as part of a new "progressive dividend policy". S&N shares lead the FTSE 100 gainers, jumping 2.05 percent to 673 pence.
International Airlines Group, owner of British Aiways, added 1.11 percent ahead of its results statement on Friday.
BAe Systems dropped 1.92 percent to 306.40 pence following the defence manufacturer's announcement of flat first half profits and falling sales.
Earnings after taxation eased to ?474 million in the six months to June from ?478 million in the same part of last year, BAE said.
Sales tumbled 11 percent to ?8.33 billion while pre-tax profits dropped 5.2 percent to ?655 million.
However, the group's order book grew to ?40 billion from ?39.1 billion a year ago.
Thomas Cook sank 4.48 percent to 16 pence as it fell into the red in the group's third quarter, hit by challenging trade and higher costs.
Europe's second largest travel company suffered an underlying operating loss of ?26.5 million in the three months to June, it said in a trading update. That compared with a profit of ?20.1 million in the year-earlier period.
"This (loss) reflects the challenging trading environments across all markets and increased operating costs," the group said in the statement.
Sales retreated 6.0 percent to ?2.29 billion, while net debt jumped to ?1.099 billion from ?902.5 million.
Aggreko eased 2.59 percent to 2,065 pence as investors decided the temporary power specialist's interim results were not as good as they had hoped.
Pretax profit jumped 23 percent to ?148 million on sales up 15 percent to 734 million. Aggreko raised its dividend by 15 percent and reiterated a prediction that the company will deliver "good growth" in the full year.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/london-shares-gold-medal-bounce-090612460.html
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