Banks and commodity stocks led a broad-based rally on Britain's top share index by midday on Monday, set to be the sixth-straight day of gains, with sentiment buoyed by a last-minute rescue of U.S. CIT Group.
By 1059 GMT, the FTSE 100 added 67.32 points, or 1.5 percent, to 4,456.07, after posting its best weekly rise since early January at Friday's close.
"The main picture that we've seen over the last few sessions is a market that is just getting more breadth and (is) less narrow than it was earlier in the year," said Darren Winder, head of macro and strategy research at Cazenove.
"As it gets more breadth, it gets more momentum, and it can post further gains from here and obviously put more index points to the total because these are some of the larger companies within healthcare and materials and financials that are all contributing to the rise in the market."
Banks led the gainers in the wake of recent strong corporate earnings from U.S. peers, with Barclays, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Royal Bank of Scotland rising 1.3 to 5.3 percent.
Lloyds Banking Group was the top gainer, up 7.3 percent, with analysts noting a report in the Sunday Times, which said it would post a first-half profit.
Investor sentiment was also lifted by U.S. lender CIT Group's tentative deal with bondholders for $3 billion in rescue financing, a move which would prevent the firm becoming the latest casualty in the financial crisis.
Good gains were also seen from insurers. Friends Provident gained 2.4 percent after financial buyout firm Resolution sweetened its proposed offer for the company, including a cash element and a commitment on dividends.
Peers Aviva, Legal & General, Old Mutual and Prudential put on between 1.7 and 5.7 percent.
Energy stocks were in demand as crude rose a dollar to above $64 a barrel on Monday, reaching the highest in almost two weeks.
BG Group rose 1.8 percent, BP added 2.3 percent and Royal Dutch Shell climbed 1.7 percent.
Against a backdrop of rising metals prices, miners enjoyed a rally, with copper hitting a nine-month high.
Anglo American, BHP Billiton, Eurasian Natural Resources Corp, Kazakhmys, Rio Tinto and Xstrata rose between 0.8 and 5.5 percent.
DRUGS UP, TOBACCO SLIPS
Pharmaceutical stocks were also strong, with AstraZeneca up 1.3 percent and Shire adding 0.4 percent.
GlaxoSmithKline rose 3.3 percent after the success of its partner firm in a lupus drug clinical trial which, if turned into a blockbuster drug, could see profits being split between GlaxoSmithKline and partner Human Genome Sciences Inc.
Tobacco issues were the biggest weight on the blue chips, with British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco down 0.7 percent and 0.5 percent, respectively.
Among individual stocks, Smith & Nephew lost 1.7 percent after Cazenove downgraded its rating on the medical devices company to "in-line" from "outperform".
On the second tier, the leaderboard was peppered with housebuilders, after data from property website Rightmove showed that the falls in property prices in England and Wales over the past year may have bottomed out.
Bellway added 5.3 percent, while Taylor Wimpey rose 5 percent.
Bovis Homes Group gained 5 percent, given a further boost by a UBS upgrade to "buy" from "neutral", with the broker citing its optimism over the continued strengthening of the UK housing market.
