London markets were buoyed by positive sentiment from Greece and booming banking and food retail sectors on Thursday afternoon. As of 14:00 BST the FTSE 100 was trading 0.5% higher at 6,864.Royal Bank of Scotland surged as George Osborne announced the government will begin the process of returning shares to private ownership in the "coming months," even though it may cause a loss for taxpayers. Spreadex analyst Connor Campbell said "investors in the stock are clearly pleased by the news".J Sainsbury gained after Cantor Fitzgerald upgraded the stock to 'buy' from 'hold', saying it believes the industry is near the bottom of its current deflation and margin cycle.CRH was trading higher following media reports that it will take part in the preliminary bidding for South Korean Tongyang Cement & Energy on 12 June, for which it has reportedly hired Goldman Sachs as an underwriter.Royal Mail dipped after the government offloaded half of its stake in the postal operator for £750m. The stock pulled back after PostNL announced the suspension of Whistl's UK direct delivery operations.Vodafone was also on the decline after Ofcom said it was investigating the telecoms giant over billing and customer complaint handling.Mining stocks including Antofagasta and Fresnillo reversed Wednesday's gains, which were driven by China's central bank deciding to cut growth forecasts, interpreted by analysts as a bullish sign of possible future stimulus to the world's second largest economy. RisersSainsbury (J) (SBRY) 267.00p +2.57%CRH (CRH) 1,884.00p +2.28%Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) 362.70p +2.23%Tesco (TSCO) 216.05p +2.18%Land Securities Group (LAND) 1,294.00p +1.97%British Land Company (BLND) 847.00p +1.93%Shire Plc (SHP) 5,355.00p +1.71%Hargreaves Lansdown (HL.) 1,272.00p +1.68%Kingfisher (KGF) 385.20p +1.53%St James's Place (STJ) 898.50p +1.53%FallersRoyal Mail (RMG) 497.60p -3.66%Vodafone Group (VOD) 236.40p -3.15%Standard Chartered (STAN) 1,069.50p -2.24%Johnson Matthey (JMAT) 3,198.00p -1.51%Antofagasta (ANTO) 725.50p -1.43%Fresnillo (FRES) 729.00p -1.15%Weir Group (WEIR) 1,896.00p -0.94%easyJet (EZJ) 1,575.00p -0.94%Babcock International Group (BAB) 1,130.00p -0.79%Intertek Group (ITRK) 2,539.00p -0.39%