In mid-morning trading UK shares are up again with BP leading the charge.

The cautiously positive sentiment has continued in London today, lifting the FTSE 100 back up to yesterday's highs. Oil giant BP is the biggest gainer on the day, up by around 3% as hope builds that they are making progress on capping the Gulf leak and also that its dividend will not be cut. There is also the feeling that the large fall on Tuesday flushed out the last of any nervous holders and the stabilisation of the price since then has investors looking at the company with a calmer pair of eyes.

Looking ahead to the US open, at the moment we are expecting the Dow to start off around 30 points higher than Thursday's close. Of course this is all expected to change in the next few hours with the latest non-farm payrolls unemployment numbers due out at 1.30pm (London time). Expectations are for around half a million jobs to have been added in the US economy last month and the way sentiment has turned itself around in recent days, a number bigger
than this could kick off another spurt upwards to finish the week on a more positive note.