Britain"s top share index edged higher early on Wednesday, as buoyant mining and energy sectors offset weakness from banks ahead of the Queen"s speech to parliament, according to Reuters. At 0915 GMT, the FTSE 100 was up 3.09 points, or 0.1 percent, at 5,349.05, after closing 0.7 percent lower on Tuesday. "We haven"t gone down purely because the U.S was up, and that"s because there wasn"t any bad news overnight in the global economy," said Howard Wheeldon, strategist at BGC Partners. "But there is still concern out there in terms of the manner in which the UK economy will move from here, (combined) with concerns about the Queen"s speech," he said. Miners helped support the index, rebounding after the previous session"s falls, against a backdrop of firmer metals prices. A target price hike from UBS further spurred Vedanta Resources, which rose 1.8 percent, with Eurasian Natural Resources, Fresnillo, Rio Tinto and Anglo American adding 1.3 to 2.6 percent. Antofagasta put on 0.8 percent. Antofagasta Minerals, its mining arm, is on track to meet its 2009 copper output target of 445,000 tonnes and improve earnings for the rest of the year, its chief executive told Reuters on Tuesday. As crude rose 0.6 percent, energy stocks were also in demand. BG Group, BP and Royal Dutch Shell put on 0.4 to 0.8 percent.
