A fresh surge for metal prices amid US dollar weakness has ensured the London market continued its push higher.
Miners occupied the leading places on the FTSE 100 Index risers board as gold set another new record and investors digested better-than-expected results from US aluminium firm Alcoa.
Vedanta Resources set the pace with a gain of 4% or 84p to 2189p, while Anglo American climbed 71.5p to 2169p as the Footsie lifted 33.5 points to 5142.4 by mid-morning.
One of the biggest moves from a non-mining stock came from luxury goods firm Burberry, which rose 17p to 521.5p amid a recent round of positive broker comment.
Lloyds Banking Group fell 3% or 3.3p to 92.5p as the City digested reports that it was considering Britain's biggest ever rights issue in a bid to escape the government-sponsored asset protection scheme.
Lloyds, which could raise £15 billion in the reported cash call, said on Wednesday night that it was still considering a number of options. Fellow part-nationalised bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, fell 0.8p to 48.8p.
In the FTSE 250, Halfords rallied 7%, up 25.3p to 389.6p, after it reported a 2.2% rise in second quarter like-for-like sales and forecast half-year profits well above market forecasts.
Bookmaker Ladbrokes moved in the opposite direction, down 7% or 12.3p to 168.9p, after it announced plans to issue new shares and said an unfavourable run of football results caused quarterly profits to slide by 58%.
Rival firm William Hill was impacted by the trading statement as its shares fell 8.6p to 167.6p.
Elsewhere, Carphone Warehouse shares rose 0.7p to 205.7p after it added more subscribers than expected to its TalkTalk broadband business. And restaurant firm Carluccio's added half a penny to 97p following its guidance that profits were slightly ahead of its hopes.
