London open: Miners lead gains on Chinese liquidity moves

UK stocks registered slight gains ahead of the final vote in the Greek parliament to choose a new president later on Monday morning.

At 09:08 the Footsie was 12.4 points higher at 6,622.33.

Should Greece's ruling coalition not garner the 180 votes needed for its presidential candidate to be chosen, then the government will have to dissolve parliament and set a course for snap elections, potentially triggering greater political uncertainty.

Miners were leading early gains. On Sunday, Xinhua News reported on new regulations from China´s central bank which in effect would relax the rules for the calculation of banks´ deposits while at the same time waiving some reserve requirements.

On Friday the S&P 500 finished the session up by seven points to 2,089 and the Dow Jones Industrials by 24 points to 18,054. The Nasdaq Composite continued its climb back towards its record early-2000 levels.

As a backdrop, investors were monitoring the situation in Libya, where on Friday government forces launched air strikes against rebel artillery units which had fired on the Es Sider oil export terminal earlier in the week. At last count the North African country´s oil production was running at about 352,000 barrels a day, versus about 850,000 barrels a day reached in October.

BG Group loads first cargo from Queensland Curtis facility

Exploration outfit BG Group announced that on 28 December it began loading the first cargo for liquified natural gas (LNG) from its Queensland Curtis LNG facility onto the Methane Rita Andrea vessel. The second cargo of LNG was scheduled to be loaded onto a carrier which was due to arrive in the first week of January.

The owners of collapsed parcel courier City Link have said they "very much regret" that staff were told of the company's entry into administration on Christmas Day. Better Capital, run by Jon Moulton, said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange that the appointment of administrator Ernst & Young was leaked ahead of the planned announcement.

Shares in Smith & Nephew could again be seen climbing higher on the heels of reports last week that US group Stryker Corp. was planning a takeover bid for the British medical-device maker.