London midday: Stocks bounce back after recent sell-off

UK markets were registering impressive gains on Tuesday morning with hopes of continued monetary easing in the Eurozone lifting sentiment as stocks bounced back following last week's sharp sell-off.After reaching a 13-year high on Wednesday, the FTSE 100 dropped sharply in the latter part of last week - losing nearly 3.0% in just two days - on fears of a scaling back of stimulus measures from the US Federal Reserve as well as some gloomy economic data from China.However with UK and US markets closed for national holidays on Monday, traders were looking to play catch up after missing out on the previous day's rally. Helping the bullish mood today were comments from European Central Bank (ECB) board member Peter Praet who said that the bank could still cut interest rates if needed to support the economy. In recent interviews, Praet said that "even after cutting the cost of money to a record low of 0.50%, the ECB signalled that the possibility of further easing was not exhausted".Market Analyst Craig Erlam from Alpari said: "Investor sentiment is on the rise in Europe this morning, with stock indices following in the footsteps of their Asian counterparts over night, which recovered early losses to end the session higher." Tuesday's session was the first positive day on Tokyo's Nikkei index since it dropped by 7.3% on Thursday."Now that the dust is beginning to settle, we could be seeing traders take advantage of the dip in the market to buy on the cheap. Given that the Bank of Japan's massive bond buying programme is only just getting under way, I think this will be the case," Erlam said.The economic data calendar was on the light side on Tuesday morning in Europe, though eyes will be fixed on consumer confidence and home-price figures in the States due out this afternoon.FTSE 100: TUI Travel, pharmas and banks provide a liftTour operator TUI Travel was among the best performers this morning, rising in sympathy with French peer Club Mediterranee after its shareholders Fosun International and Axa Private Equity joined forces to make a €540m bid for the firm.Drugs giant AstraZeneca higher after saying that it will continue to "vigorously" defend the intellectual property rights protecting its asthma medicine Pulmicort Respules. The company is appealing against a US court ruling that the patent protecting Pulmicort from rival drugs in the US is invalid. Sector peers Shire and GlaxoSmithKline were also in demand early on, with the latter being boosted by an upgrade by Deutsche Bank to 'buy'.Financial stocks were also performing well as markets on the whole rebounded from last week's sell-off. HSBC, Barclays and Standard Chartered were in positive territory, joined by part-nationalised lenders RBS and Lloyds which were both shrugging off downgrades by Citigroup today.Wood Group was also higher on news that its PSN business will continue to provide duty holder and asset management services to the Hummingbird Spirit floating storage offloading production vessel, under a new contract extension worth $87m from Teekay. Positive comments from Bank of America Merrill Lynch were helping share prices of a number of retailers this morning after the broker raised its target prices for Sainsbury, Marks & Spencer and Tesco.FTSE 250: Victrex jumps after first-half reportPolymer manufacturer Victrex was a high riser on the second-tier index after increasing its interim dividend by 15% despite a slight fall in profits. The company however still managed to beat profit before tax forecasts by 2.0% in the first half.Soft drinks maker AG Barr was also up as it managed to increase revenues by 2.4% in the first quarter in spite of the dismal weather.Mining firm Kazakhmys was heading the other way after announcing that it has sold its long-held German copper products unit MKM for €42m. "MKM is an excellent business, but did not fit with our geographic and strategic focus as a natural resources company in Central Asia," the company said.FTSE 100 - RisersPetrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,391.00p +3.81%Barclays (BARC) 328.95p +3.77%TUI Travel (TT.) 371.50p +3.63%CRH (CRH) 1,438.00p +3.45%Weir Group (WEIR) 2,373.00p +3.40%Melrose Industries (MRO) 263.70p +3.33%GKN (GKN) 305.90p +3.21%International Consolidated Airlines Group SA (CDI) (IAG) 281.60p +3.15%Babcock International Group (BAB) 1,202.00p +3.09%AstraZeneca (AZN) 3,534.00p +3.09%FTSE 100 - FallersEurasian Natural Resources Corp. (ENRC) 249.00p -2.28%Randgold Resources Ltd. (RRS) 4,921.00p -1.34%Severn Trent (SVT) 2,049.00p -1.06%Anglo American (AAL) 1,549.00p -0.48%United Utilities Group (UU.) 784.00p -0.38%Carnival (CCL) 2,229.00p -0.36%Glencore Xstrata (GLEN) 331.75p -0.03%Rio Tinto (RIO) 2,866.50p -0.02%FTSE 250 - RisersNew World Resources A Shares (NWR) 115.20p +8.88%Victrex (VCT) 1,720.00p +5.65%Pace (PIC) 260.00p +4.00%Ferrexpo (FXPO) 177.20p +3.99%Telecity Group (TCY) 979.50p +3.93%Laird (LRD) 212.10p +3.87%Inchcape (INCH) 569.50p +3.73%Ashtead Group (AHT) 655.00p +3.39%Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 2,881.00p +3.37%Homeserve (HSV) 263.60p +3.37%FTSE 250 - FallersHochschild Mining (HOC) 241.30p -2.43%Kazakhmys (KAZ) 318.40p -2.36%AZ Electronic Materials SA (DI) (AZEM) 316.30p -2.23%Kenmare Resources (KMR) 31.00p -2.08%Dunelm Group (DNLM) 854.00p -1.84%EnQuest (ENQ) 131.50p -1.28%Telecom Plus (TEP) 1,271.00p -1.24%Salamander Energy (SMDR) 164.80p -1.20%HICL Infrastructure Company Ltd (HICL) 128.60p -1.08%Carpetright (CPR) 635.00p -1.01%