Financial traders appear to be in good spirits as they return to their desks after the Easter break, pushing leading shares to a fresh 21-month high.
In early trading, the FTSE 100 index is up 41 points at 5785.94, its highest level since 19 June 2008. This is the City's first opportunity to respond to last week's better-than-expected US jobs data. If you missed it, non-farm payrolls rose by 162,000 rise in March, which President Obama hailed as a sign that the American economy was "beginning to turn the corner".
News overnight of a rise in Australian interest rates has also caused little alarm.
Admiral is leading the FTSE 100 risers, adding to its recent gains with a 3.3% rise to £13.76. Otherwise, miners and energy companies are driving the rally, with Petrofac up 2.8% at £12.22 and Xstrata 2.3% higher at £13.30.
In the losers column, BAE Systems is the biggest faller with a 1.2% drop to 369p. This follows a Sell note from Goldman Sachs yesterday, in which it said that:
We still believe BAE's earnings per share will peak in 2010 and then decline for a number of years. We are increasingly concerned about the outlook for defence spending in the U.S. and UK (68 percent of BAE's 2009 sales) and about deteriorating terms of trade in U.S. defence.
Vodafone has also lost 1.2%, to 149.85p. As my colleague Rick Wray reported this morning, the mobile industry faces the threat of a 'capacity crunch' - plans to free up more spectrum for high-speed data services could be delayed by up to a year because of the upcoming general election.
In the FTSE 250, Gartmore Group is up 6.3% at 149.9p after announcing the successful completion of its joint venture with Hermes. This means it has clawed back most of last week's losses following the suspension of star fund manager Guillaume Rambourg.
Gordon Brown's trip to the Palace later this morning to ask for a dissolution of parliament has not caused much drama in the City either. The pound is steady at $1.5185 versus the dollar.
