THE FTSE 100 struggled for direction on Friday, but managed to end in positive territory following two days of losses.
London's top flight ended the day up 22.81 points, or 0.32%, at 7,049.8.
The index was helped by the likes of consumer goods giants Reckitt Benckiser and Unilever, which were riding high off the back of solid results from US peer Proctor and Gamble.
Unilever shares closed up 124p at 4,110.5p while Reckitt Benckiser ended 243p higher at 6,714p.
Another high flyer was London Stock Exchange Group itself, which announced it is to fork out €438 million (£384m) to up its stake in British clearing house LCH, despite uncertainty over the regulation of euro clearing contracts post-Brexit.
The group said on Friday that it plans to acquire an additional stake of up to 15.1% in the business, bringing its total holding to over 80%.
In addition, third quarter earnings showed a 5% rise in reported revenue to £464m and an 8% jump in total income to £522m.
Investors warmed to the news, sending shares 105p higher to 4,391p at the close.
At the other end of the index, airlines were suffering after a broker note pointed to headwinds including higher fuel costs and weaker demand weighing on margins.
British Airways owner IAG and EasyJet were among the casualties, with both ending in the red.
EasyJet was propping up the FTSE 100 after shares dropped 72p to 1,068p and IAG was down 18.4p at 557p.
On the FTSE 250, Intu Properties finished top of the pile after a consortium of investors upped its takeover approach, valuing the company at around £2.8 billion.
Peel Group, the Olayan Group and Brookfield Property Group revised an initial proposal of 205p per share up to 215p, following engagement with Intu's directors.
The news sent shares soaring to 200p, a rise of 22.3p, or 12.55%.
Sterling, meanwhile, managed to hold steady despite the Brexit impasse showing no signs of disappearing.
The pound was up 0.2% versus the US dollar at 1.304 and down by the same amount against the euro at 1.133.
Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets, said: "Given the amount of negative Brexit headlines this week, the pound hasn't performed too badly.
"It is modestly lower against most of its peers however given the fact that mutterings of a 'no deal' outcome have increased it has held up rather well, probably as a result of more encouraging economic data.
"This reinforces the perception that the pound is trading at a significant political discount due to the antics of our esteemed politicians."
In Europe, Germany's DAX was down 0.31% and France's CAC was down 0.63%.
A barrel of Brent crude was changing hands at $80.3, an increase of 1.2%.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were Reckitt Benckiser up 243p at 6,714p, GlaxoSmithKline up 47p at 1,157.6p, Unilever up 124p at 4,110.5p and Diageo up 76.5p at 2,701p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were EasyJet down 72p at 1,068p, Evraz down 29.4p at 523.6p, DS Smith down 18.8p at 385.1p and Barratt Developments down 22.6p at 491.6p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here