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(Alliance News) - Stock prices in London opened higher on Monday amid optimism over US-China trade talks, while Burberry rose after luxury goods peer LVMH clinched its acquisition of Tiffany.
China said over the weekend it would hike penalties on violations of intellectual property rights while also looking at reducing the thresholds for criminal punishments of those who steal IP.
The US wants China to commit to cracking down on IP theft and stop forcing US companies to hand over their commercial secrets as a condition of doing business there.
The FTSE 100 was 42.75 points higher, or 0.6%, at 7,369.56. The FTSE 250 was up 79.92 points, or 0.4%, at 20,565.73, and the AIM All-Share was up 1.12 points, or 0.1% at 908.02.
The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.4% at 12,468.93. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.1% at 18,395.45, and the Cboe UK Small Companies was flat at 11,298.77.
In European equities, the CAC 40 index in Paris was up 0.5% and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt up 0.6% in early trade.
Analysts at FXPro said: "Markets turned to growth at the beginning of the week, after US officials indicated that there is still a possibility of concluding a phase one of trade deal this year. Markets are encouraged by the fact that negotiations between the two largest world economies are still ongoing in general. This gives rise to hopes that the US may postpone December's tariff hike, affecting USD156 billion goods.
"Stock markets are moving cautiously upwards, while volatility continues to contract, which could be taken as an early signal for a possible future explosion of market volatility."
In the FTSE 100, miners were rising amid the positive US-China trade development.
Glencore, BHP, Anglo American and Rio Tinto were up 1.8%, 1.6%, 1.7% and 2.0% respectively.
Fashion house Burberry Group was up 1.4% on a positive read-across from French luxury goods firm LVMH Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton's deal to acquire Tiffany & Co.
Bernard Arnault led-LVMH has offered USD135 per share, which values New York Stock Exchange-listed Tiffany at around USD16.2 billion. The improved offer exceeds the initial USD120 per share bid tabled on October 28 that valued the US jeweller at USD14.5 billion.
Tiffany was founded in New York in 1837 by Charles Lewis Tiffany and now has 300 stores around the world in addition to its iconic flagship on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.
LVMH shares were up 1.4% in Paris.
At the other end of the large cap index, Mexican gold miner Fresnillo was the worst performer, down 2.5%, tracking spot gold prices lower.
Gold was quoted at USD1,457.29 an ounce early Monday, down from USD1,464.30 late Friday.
In the FTSE 250, NewRiver REIT was up 2.4% after the leisure property investor acquired a Northern Ireland retail park for GBP40 million from shopping mall operator Intu Properties.
NewRiver bought the Sprucefield Retail Park in Lisburn for GBP40.0 million, equivalent to a net initial yield of 8.7%.
Intu shares were up 2.7%.
At the other end of the midcaps, Petrofac was down 1.0% after the Guardian reported on Sunday that the oilfield services firm is facing a further investigation for corruption.
Petrofac, the newspaper said, has been alleged to have maintained a false set of accounts to hide bribes to foreign government officials as part of an investigation by US regulators into another firm in the sector, Unaoil.
This is on top of an ongoing investigation into Petrofac over suspected bribery and money laundering by the UK Serious Fraud Office.
The Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.8%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.7%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong closed up 1.4%.
Hong Kong's leader Carrie Lam vowed Monday to "listen humbly" to voters after the pro-democracy camp scored a crushing victory in community-level elections that revealed broad public support for a protest movement that has sparked months of violence.
In a rout that stunned the semi-autonomous territory, candidates seeking to loosen control by China seized an overwhelming majority of the 452 seats in the city's 18 district councils, bodies that have historically been firmly in the grip of a Beijing-aligned establishment.
The pound was quoted at USD1.2872 early Monday, up from USD1.2831 at the London equities close on Friday.
The economic events calendar on Monday has Germany IFO business climate readings at 0900 GMT.
By Arvind Bhunjun; arvindbhunjun@alliancenews.com
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