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LONDON (Alliance News) - The FTSE 100 continued to climb higher at midday on Thursday though the large cap index eased off some earlier gains with Wall Street poised for a soft start.Driving the blue-chip index was London's largest listed company by market capitalisation, Royal Dutch Shell, on a robust set of annual earnings. The FTSE 100 was up 37.93 points, or 0.6%, at 6,979.56 at midday, having hit 6,994.88 in morning trade.The FTSE 250 was 22.75 points higher, or 0.1%, at 18,850.72, and the AIM All-Share was up 0.7% at 917.98.The Cboe UK 100 was up 0.6% at 11,852.41, while the Cboe UK 250 was up 0.3% at 16,851.49 and the Cboe UK Small Companies up 0.2% at 11,293.93."Stock markets received a combined earnings and Fed boost on Wednesday but that has already faded ahead of the open this morning, with [US futures] only slightly in the green," said Oanda senior market analyst Craig Erlam."The Fed is a very important factor in keeping investors onside," Erlam said. "The central bank has quite clearly become more dovish over the last couple of months and on Wednesday vowed to remain patient on interest rate hikes and flexible with the balance sheet."Departing from the hawkish approach to rate hikes expressed by the US Federal Reserve over the majority of 2018, the central bank on Wednesday kept its benchmark interest rate unchanged at its first meeting of 2019, vowing to be "patient" regarding future adjustments.The Fed did not indicate any future plans to raise interest rates, striking a cautious tone as it held the rate's target range at 2.25 to 2.50%.The accompanying statement included some notable changes from last month, including dropping a reference to the Fed's plan for further gradual rate increases. The US central bank also removed a sentence describing the risks to the economic outlook as "roughly balanced". Stocks in the US are on course for a mild start on Thursday, with the Dow Jones called down 0.1% and the S&P 500 seen flat. However, the Nasdaq is pointed 0.3% higher. The tech-heavy Nasdaq is set for a positive open after shares in constituent Facebook rose 11% in after-hours trade as the social media giant posted strong financial results for its fourth quarter and full year despite questions over the company's privacy practices.Net income jumped 61% to USD6.8 billion compared with the 2017 quarter, while revenue grew to USD16.9 billion, or 30%. The number of daily active users was 1.52 billion, an increase of 9% over 2017.To come in the US earnings calendar are figures from industrial conglomerate General Electric and payment services provider MasterCard before the market open. After the close, online retail giant Amazon reports.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and the DAX 30 in Frankfurt were up 0.3% and 0.1% respectively.The eurozone economy maintained growth momentum in the fourth quarter as the bloc posted growth of 1.8% for 2018 as a whole. Compared to the same period a year ago, GDP rose 1.2% in the fourth quarter after a 1.6% increase in the previous three months. The annual growth figure matched economists' prediction.Powering the FTSE 100 on Thursday was oil major Shell, with 'A' shares up 4.2% and 'B' shares 4.5% higher after a strong 2018.London's largest listed firm by market value said current cost of supply earnings excluding identified items attributable to shareholders rose 36% to USD21.40 billion from USD15.76 billion in 2017. Analyst consensus had predicted CCS earnings of USD20.98 billion.For the fourth quarter alone, CCS earnings were USD5.69 billion, up 32% compared to USD4.30 billion for the same three-month period a year ago. Consensus stood at USD5.28 billion."With the oil price looking healthier than in 2017, Shell has transformed into a giant cash machine and that's funding investment, debt repayments and some whopping great returns to shareholders. Production might not be growing rapidly as yet, but when the price of what you sell is up 30%, it doesn't matter all that much," said Nicholas Hyett, analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.Also announced Thursday by Shell was the start of the third tranche of its share buyback programme, first announced last July.The third tranche will be worth USD2.5 billion, and is part of Shell's plan to buy "at least" USD25 billion of shares from shareholders by the end of 2020.Peer BP, which reports its own annual results next week, was up 1.8% as investors hope for similarly strong numbers.Another blue-chip gainer on Thursday was distiller Diageo after it posted strong first-half growth and upped its share buyback programme. For the six months to December 31, the beer and spirits maker posted an increase in pretax profit to GBP2.63 billion from GBP2.20 billion the year before.Diageo reported an increase of 5.8% in net sales to GBP6.91 billion from GBP6.53 billion the year before.The Smirnoff vodka maker added that it has approved an incremental share buyback of GBP660 million, bringing the total programme for the year ending June 30 to GBP3.0 billion.Providing a slight drag at the bottom of the index was Standard Life Aberdeen, down 4.4% after Morgan Stanley cut the asset manager to Equal Weight from Overweight. Unilever shares also declined, down 3.8% as fourth quarter organic sales growth disappointed though the consumer goods giant managed to post a sharp rise in annual profit.The Lipton iced tea and Hellmann's mayonnaise maker reported a pretax profit of EUR12.38 billion, up 53% from EUR8.15 billion in 2017.Profit was helped by its underlying operating margin rising 90 basis points to 18.4%, above consensus of 18.2%. However, organic sales growth of 2.9% in the fourth quarter was lower than consensus of 3.5%, and had slowed from 3.8% in the third quarter. BT shares drifted 2.0% after the telecommunications firm posted a rise in third quarter profit but revenue fell. For the nine months ended December, pretax profit grew 20% to GBP2.09 billion from GBP1.74 billion a year prior. Revenue fell 1.1% to GBP17.56 billion from GBP17.76 billion a year before.Profit was boosted by lower specific item costs, including the settlement of EE acquisition warranty claims in the prior year, and the release of provisions relating to settlement of various matters in the Italian business.Sat at the top of the FTSE 250 was iron ore pellet producer Ferrexpo after Deutsche Bank upgraded the stock to Buy from Hold, believing the mid-cap firm will benefit from higher commodity prices in the wake of the collapse of a Vale mining dam in Brazil.