Headline shares were sharply higher in early deals, taking a lead from a stellar performance on Wall Street last night and gains across Asia this morning, with mining shares leading the charge. At 8:30am, the FTSE100 was up 78.13 points at 5,229.45 with the FTSE250 ahead 161.56 points at 9,821.94 and the FTSE Smallcaps 10.98 points better at 2,762.97. In the US last night, the Dow jumped 226 points at 10,250, the Nasdaq added 59 points at 2,281 and the S&P500 was up 28 points at 1,098. In Asia today, the Nikkei was up 310.95 points at 9,914.19, while the Hang Seng was recently ahead 286.36 points at 19,758.16. Crude oil traded at $73.59 a barrel on Nymex.

LONDON MARKETS

Early trade in London was brisk, taking its lead from strong gains in the US and Asia overnight, with commodity shares leading the charge on hopes of increasing demand for raw materials. Amongst the miners, Xstrata Plc (LON:XTA) gained 25p at 1,017p after announcing cutbacks on investment in Australia and the shelving of some projects, in the wake of the imposition of a supertax.

However, Kazakhmys (LON:KAZ) topped the blue chip leaderboard early on, up 43p at 1,202p, closely followed by ENRC which gained 33.5p at 1,022p. Rio Tinto (LON:RIO) improved 95.5p at 3,233.5p and BHP Billiton (LON:BLT) rose 38.5p at 1,894.5p.

Oil producers were also back on track as crude rose to $73.75 a barrel. BP (LON:BP.) recovered 9.55p at 439.3p as it continued to try to stem the spill of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, with reports that it may consider selling off Alaskan assets to pay for the clean-up operation. BP (LON:BP.) is already under pressure in the US to suspend dividend payments.

Peer Shell gained 32.5p at 1,776.5p and BG Group (LON:BG.) added 18p at 1,081p, while explorer Tullow Oil Plc (LON:TLW) ticked up 19p at 1,147p.

Precious metals processor Johnson Matthey (LON:JMAT) jumped 28p at 1,583p after raising its full-year dividend 5% despite a dip in earnings and flat sales.

Retailers were back on the shopping list, with B&Q owner Kingfisher (LON:KGF) rising 4.6p at 253.7p after reporting Q1 retail profit was up 14.5%. Home Retail Group Plc (LON:HOME) Group, which owns rival…

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