Morning Markets: Late Wall Street rally prompts early recovery

Shares in London stage an early recovery, encouraged by Wall Street's late rally in response to a raft of healthy earnings figures.

By 8.45am the FTSE 100 index was up 44 points at 6,689 and the Mid-250 index was 40 points firmer at 10,866.

ARM Holdings was among the top risers on news that the internet is now worth £100 billion to the British economy.

Vodafone added 2.25p to 168.5p as Ofcom paved the way for better rural 3G mobile reception.

Mining shares presented a brighter picture as the dollar eased back again.

Rio Tinto at £41.34 and BHP Billiton £22 led the field with rises of 63p and 57p, while Kazakhmys improved 19p to £13.40 in spite of a fall in copper output.

BG Group jumped 13p to £11.92 after announcing its first production from the 100,000 barrel-per-day Tupi facilities

On the minus side AstraZeneca receded 49p to £31.97 as the group narrowed guidance for the full-year towards the top end of the range

Among the Mid-Caps Renishaw stood out at £12.05, up 26p, helped by a broker rating upgrade while vague bid speculation returned to enliven Computacenter at 368p, up 10p.

An upbeat trading statement failed to stem profit-taking at Croda International, 86p easier at £14.29 and Premier Foods softened 0.69p to £18.06p following a 4.2% dip in third-quarter sales.

Carpetright shed another 8p to 669p on further reaction to yesterday's gloomy outlook and a confident update did little for Pace at 207p, down 3p.

In the smaller caps reduced debt helped International Greetings to a 3.5p improvement to 63p