British Airways and Iberia owner IAG was in demand throughout the day after UBS upgraded the stock from 'neutral' to 'buy', following its underperformance against other European airline shares under the broker's coverage.

"We think that IAG could be the laggard most likely to outperform in 2013 should it achieve the concessions the company wants from Iberia staff," the broker said.

Financial stocks were also performing well with asset management firms given a lift by Credit Suisse. The Swiss broker said that the recent improvement in the macro backdrop should drive investor appetite "which bodes well for the asset managers". It upgraded Schroders to 'neutral' and maintained its 'outperform' recommendation for Aberdeen.

Elsewhere, insurance giant Aviva was boosted by an upgrade by Citigroup to 'buy'. Banking peers RBS, Barclays and Lloyds were also among the highest risers.

Meanwhile, oil giant Tullow was under the weather after achieving average working interest production of 79,200 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in 2012, below the forecast range of 80,000-84,000 bopd. The group also revealed that exploration write-offs more than doubled last year due to a number of unsuccessful drilling activities and licence relinquishments.

Mining giants BHP Billiton, Kazakhmys and Antofagasta were firmly lower, with the sector hit by Chinese data which showed consumer prices had risen higher than expected in December, to a seven-month high.


FTSE 100 - Risers
International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 207.30p +5.28%
Aviva (AV.) 379.80p +3.21%
Aberdeen Asset Management (ADN) 389.90p +2.58%
Reckitt Benckiser Group (RB.) 3,982.00p +1.71%
Reed Elsevier (REL) 660.00p +1.69%
Next (NXT) 3,988.00p +1.61%
Barclays (BARC) 299.10p +1.53%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,316.00p +1.39%
G4S (GFS) 265.20p +1.38%
IMI (IMI) 1,132.00p +1.34%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,167.00p -4.73%
BHP Billiton (BLT) 2,071.00p -2.86%
Kazakhmys (KAZ) 809.50p -2.00%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 1,298.00p -1.82%
Croda International (CRDA) 2,288.00p -1.72%
Anglo American (AAL) 2,038.00p -1.64%
Rio Tinto (RIO) 3,454.00p -1.64%
Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 2,263.00p -1.39%
Aggreko (AGK) 1,747.00p -1.36%
Vedanta Resources (VED) 1,191.00p -1.24%

NR

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