Cadbury was one of the leading performers in early trading, up 2 per cent at 597p ahead of results next Wednesday, helped by Sanford Bernstein reiterating its "buy" advice, saying that it may well use the event to announce a final decision on the sale of the drinks business.

The FTSE 100 was up 17.6 points at 6,565.3 by 10.50am, buoyed by the miners on rising metals prices, with Vedanta Resources and Kazakhmys both up 3 per cent at £21.95 and £15.71, respectively. Rio Tinto was up 2 per cent at £42.20.

An upbeat note on the sector from ABN Amro, which said that prices of iron ore and copper would keep on rising longer term, also helped to lift the miners.

Property companies led the fallers, following British Land's announcement yesterday that it was pulling the sale of a stake in the Meadowhall shopping centre in Sheffield.

Land lost 5 per cent to £11.01 and was closely followed by Liberty International, which also has exposure to shopping centres and Land Securities, off 4.5 per cent at £16.64.

Although it opened in positive territory, Northern Rock lost 3.5 per cent by midmorning at 156p on worries about how long it could continue borrowing from the Bank of England at punitive interest rates.

Alliance & Leicester lost 3.8 per cent to 820p after Deutsche Bank downgraded it to "sell" with a 775p price target.

Deutsche said: "Like other UK mortgage banks, A&L's returns on equity have only been sustained through increased balance sheet leverage.

"We believe this is not a sustainable position and expect its returns on equity to decline as its returns on assets are negatively impacted by further margin pressure and an increase in mortgage bad debts."

Similarly, Barratt Developments was off nearly 4 per cent after a downgrade from ABN Amro, which, in a review of the housing sector, said that its homes were in the part of the market that was most exposed to higher mortgage costs.

Panmure Gordon cut its rating on the house builder to "sell" yesterday.

ABN also stuck the knife into HBOS, moving from a "buy" to a "hold" as it said that its new strategy of accelerating corporate lending in a credit downturn would not bode well for future bad debts.

HBOS duly fell 2 per cent to 940p.

EasyJet topped the mid-cap risers, up nearly 4 per cent at 569p after it revealed passenger growth of 14 per cent in September.

This hit shares in the rival British Airways, off 1 per cent at 419.25p.

Bradford & Bingley was one of the worst FTSE 250 performers, off 5.25 per cent at 289p.

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