The FTSE 100 was up 11 this morning at 5,613 points, with financials peppering both sides of the gainers and losers tables.
Barclays fell 1.8% to 339.7p as rumours swirled about a fundraising backed by a Chinese investor.
Credit Suisse said this week Barclays was its favourite UK bank, with a target of 375p, but added there was "limited scope for balance sheet expansion".
Schroders, which went ex-dividend, dropped 1.8% to £13.63. Morgan Stanley said its sales momentum had "broadened from the corporate bond focus of the second and third quarters of 2009".
Man Group also fell, by 1.9% to 244.7p.
British American Tobacco and TUI Travel, newly ex-dividend stocks, fell by 3.8% and 2.4% respectively.
Royal Bank of Scotland rose most, up 2.5% to 39.97p, despite news it had the biggest pension deficit relative to its market value of all FTSE 350 finance firms.
Lloyds Banking Group also rose, by 1.4% to 53.94p.
London could react today to UK January manufacturing output numbers, with a 1.4% year on year gain expected.
In the US the Dow Jones rose 0.1%, or 11.8 points overnight, to 10,564.38.
The S&P 500 closed up nearly two points at 1140, while the Nasdaq gained eight points to 2340.
Gainers outnumbered fallers by five to four on Nasdaq, a far cry from 10 years ago, when the dot.com bubble burst.
United Technologies Corp gained the most yesterday, by 1.4% to $71.78 after a broker upgraded its rating.
Home Depot Inc was the sharpest faller, shedding 0.9% of its value to $31.68.
In Asia, the Nikkei 225 was flat at 10,563.92, on mixed news in the region. One survey predicted Singapore's economy could expand by 6.5% this year, but another said Japan machinery orders skipped 3.7% in January.
