London open: Oil spike lifts Footsie

Footsie has opened stronger helped by an improvement on Wall Street last night and strong demand for oil stocks after a spike in crude prices.National Express, though, is the main talking point. The price has crashed by more than a quarter as investors face the prospect of a hefty rights issue after the CVC consortium dropped its interest in making a bid.It is the oil groups that are driving Footsie higher. The crude price briefly touched $78 per barrel on worse than expected US petrol inventory figures, which has given a lift this morning to BG, Tullow, Cairn and Shell. Lloyds is the best performer. It has sold its loss-making Halifax estate agency business for £1 to LSL Property.Admiral remains on track to meet 2009 profit forecasts with a "fine" third quarter at its car insurance business helping turnover grow 22% to £294m. "I'm pleased to report that not much has changed in three months," said boss Henry Engelhardt in a short trading update. "Our successful business continues to grow and prosper."Fixed income fund manager BlueBay lifted funds under management by 28% over the past three months driven by strong demand for investment grade bonds. Estimated assets under management at end September amounted to $31.1bn, a $6.8bn increase since June. NetGreeting cards retailer Clinton Cards saw sales fall in the year to August 2, but saw an improvement in the second half of the period that continued into the new financial year. Virgin Mobile France, in which Carphone Warehouse has a 48.5% stake, is to pay €56m (£51.3m) in cash for Tele2 France and its 385,000 customers. Chrysalis expects full year results to be "slightly" ahead of forecasts after its Music Publishing and Lasgo businesses performed well during the past two months.Engineering project designer Aveva's latest six months has seen trading slightly ahead of expectations helped by exchange rate movements and solid demand from its existing customers.