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LONDON (Alliance News) - Gains for Next and Royal Bank of Scotland early Thursday saw the FTSE 100 climb to its best level since late January, though the blue-chip index quickly gave back most of these gains with BT and ex-dividend stocks weighing.Headlining the UK economic calendar on Thursday is the Bank of England's 'Super Thursday', which sees the latest monetary policy decision and inflation report released at 1200 BST. This will be followed by a press conference with Governor Mark Carney."Up until a couple of weeks ago, expectations were high that the BoE would lift its policy rate by a quarter-point to 0.75% at this meeting. However, cautious comments from Governor Carney and a spate of weaker-than-expected data releases in the past couple of weeks have all but extinguished the prospect of a move," said analysts at Lloyds Banking."Going in to today's meeting, interest rate markets are attaching only a 15% probability to an increase in Bank Rate," Lloyds said.Sterling was quoted at USD1.3547 early Thursday ahead of the BoE, soft compared to USD1.3577 at the London equities close on Wednesday.The FTSE 100 index was up 0.1%, or 5.49 points, at 7,668.01 early Thursday. The large-cap index hit a high of 7,683.13 in early trade, its best level since late January.The mid-cap FTSE 250 index was up 0.2%, or 44.92 points at 20,726.87. The AIM All-Share index was up 0.1% at 1,076.50.The Cboe UK 100 index was up 0.1% at 13,002.90. The Cboe UK 250 was up 0.3% at 18,988.32, and the Cboe UK Small Companies flat at 12,665.87.In mainland Europe, the CAC 40 in Paris and DAX 30 in Frankfurt were down 0.1% and up 0.3% respectively early Thursday. France and Germany celebrate Ascension Day on Thursday, but stock markets are open.At the top of the FTSE 100 early Thursday was Next, 6.0% higher as it reported a better than expected set of first-quarter sales. Sales rose 6.0% in the fourteen weeks to May 7. Within this, Retail fell 4.8% and Online was up 18%.Sales in the period were around GBP40 million ahead of internal forecasts, Next said, boosted in recent weeks by "unusually warm weather". This sales "over-performance" has added around GBP12 million to the company's full-year profit.Next said its central guidance now sees total full price sales growth of 2.2% year-on-year for the 12 months to January 2019, compared to guidance of 1.0% previously.The company now also expects pretax profit of around GBP717 million, as opposed to the GBP705 million guided previously, following its outperformance in the first quarter. This would mark a 1.3% decline on last year, while the previous guidance would have marked a 2.9% fall.RBS was in second place, up 5.0% after it said it has reached a USD4.9 billion settlement with the US Department of Justice over its mis-selling of residential mortgage-backed securities.The state-backed lender said USD3.46 billion of the amount will be covered by existing provisions, with an incremental charge of USD1.44 billion in the second quarter.RBS Chief Executive officer Ross McEwan said the agreement in principle with the DoJ was "a milestone".McEwan said: "Today's announcement is a milestone moment for the bank. Reaching this settlement in principle with the US Department of Justice will, when finalised, allow us to deal with this significant remaining legacy issue and is the price we have to pay for the global ambitions pursued by this bank before the crisis. Removing the uncertainty over the scale of this settlement means that the investment case for this bank is much clearer."Shore Capital analyst Gary Greenwood said the outcome was "excellent" for the bank."The total settlement is much smaller than feared, with estimates published in the media ranging up to USD13 billion. This therefore represents an excellent outcome for the group which should now open the door for the group to pass the Bank of England's stress testing exercise," Greenwood comment.Wm Morrison Supermarkets was up 2.7% after it reported like-for-like sales in the first quarter grew 3.6% excluding fuel, comprising contributions from retail of 1.8% and wholesale of 1.8%. Including fuel, this figure was 1.9%.Total sales were 3.8% higher in the thirteen weeks to May 6 excluding fuel, up 2.1% including fuel.At the bottom of the index was BT Group, down 8.9% as it announced plans to cut 13,000 jobs and said its pension funding deficit as at June 30 was GBP11.3 billion.In addition on Thursday, the telecommunications company said revenue for the year to March 31 fell 1% to GBP23.72 billion from GBP24.06 billion, though pretax profit climbed 11% to GBP2.62 billion from GBP2.35 billion. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation came in at GBP7.51 billion, down 2%.The company proposed a final dividend of 10.55p, giving a full year dividend of 15.4p, unchanged from last year.For the year ahead, BT said it sees underlying revenue down around 2%, adjusted Ebitda between GBP7.3 billion to GBP7.4 billion, and capital expenditure at GBP3.7 billion.Among ex-dividend stocks on Thursday were Centrica, down 5.7%, BP, down 1.0%, GlaxoSmithKline, down 0.9%, and Royal Dutch Shell 'B', down 0.8%. This means new buyers no longer qualify for the latest payouts.In the FTSE 250, Superdry dropped 7.0%. The fashion retailer said global brand revenue was up 22% for the year ended April 28, with group revenue up 16%.Underlying full year pretax profit - after the distribution centre migration and development market investment - will be in the range of GBP96.5 million to GBP97.5 million, "representing another year of double-digit profit growth." Superdry said full-year statutory profit will be affected by a non-cash impairment charge of approximately GBP7.2 million in respect of the company's last flagship store investment, in Berlin Kranzler, which was made in 2015. "While the consumer environment remains challenging, we are confident that Superdry's reputation for quality, design detail and strong value for money, underpinned by our continued investment in the business, leaves us well placed. We remain focused on the growth opportunities ahead and confident in the quality of sustainable earnings growth we can deliver over the long-term," said Chief Executive Euan Sutherland.In Asia on Thursday, the Japanese Nikkei 225 index closed up 0.4%. In China, the Shanghai Composite closed up 0.5%, while the Hang Seng index in Hong Kong is 0.8% higher.Data released earlier on Thursday showed China's consumer price inflation eased to a three-month low in April on weak food price growth, while producer price inflation increased for the first time in seven months on commodity prices.Inflation eased to 1.8% in April from 2.1% in March. This was the lowest since January, when the rate was 1.5% and below the expected level of 1.9%. The government targets around 3% inflation for 2018.Another report showed producer price inflation accelerated to 3.4% from 3.1% in March. The rate came in line with expectations, and was the first time prices have increased since last September.To come in the economic calendar on Thursday, UK manufacturing production is at 0930 BST, along with industrial production and the trade balance due at the same time, with the NISER GDP estimate at 1300 BST.In the US, initial jobless claims are at 1330 BST with the consumer price index due at the same time.