Market overview: Stocks rise but oil markets continue to be in focus

1605: The share prices of BP and Royal Dutch Shell surged on Tuesday afternoon on the back of market chatter that the two oil majors could be looking to merge. BP, the smaller of the two with a market capitalisation of £79bn, was up 4.6%, while Shell, which is valued at around £211bn, jumped 3.8%.

1536: Sainsbury's shares are making decent gains, up over 4%, helped by comments from Citigroup analyst Pradeep Pratti who reiterated his 'buy' rating and 300p target price for the stock. After last week's Citi Retail Day, the bank spoke to Sainsbury CFO John Rogers about the grocer's recent £150m price investment. According to Pratti, Rogers said that Sainsbury's "price position versus both Morrison and Tesco has never been better". The executive said it would be more costly for its competitors to match Sainsbury on its latest reductions.

1408: The technical picture for cable continues to be rather weak, RBS technical analyst Dmytro Bondar wrote on Tuesday. The 50% Fibonacci re-tracement level at 1.56 held, stalling the sell-off. Nevertheless, the weekly chart saw a 'bear-flag' pattern triggered. That points to further downside pressure, towards 1.52, following some consolidation within 1.56-1.58. In parallel, Bondar sees "increasing chances" of the pair reaching 0.8162 and potentially 0.8410. A caveat would come with a "sustained break" below 0.7895, he added.

1330: Three-month copper futures are advancing by 1.1% to $6,384.75 per metric tonne on the LME.

1303: M&A is not the way to go for Vodafone says Deutsche Bank. "On worse terms than that, in our view VOD should continue to exercise its options in the UK market before being rattled into expensive M&A."

1253: "A deep slump in prices might equally heighten geo-strategic turmoil across the broader Middle East and boomerang against the Gulf’s petro-sheikhdoms before it inflicts a knock-out blow on US rivals," says Investec in a research note issued today.

1234: The first rule of crisis management says "do not contradict yourself", with the second one being "get your numbers right". Russian officials seem to have done poorly on both scores on Tuesday morning. The country's finance minister is now being quoted as calling into question the Ministry for Economic Development's latest macroeconomic forecasts. For some observers little more should be expected regarding the third rule of crisis management: "identify the problem and act swiftly". Although the rouble's floating exchange rate helps to cushion the economy from shocks, forecasts for larger declines in the price of crude and geopolitical uncertainty augur poorly for the currency's prospects.

1144: The Russian rouble is now falling 2.2% to 52.79 versus the US dollar after having strengthened towards the 50.6 mark overnight. Front month Brent crude futures are dipping 1.1% to $71.74 per barrel on the ICE. 10-year Greek government bond yields are off by 24 basis points to 7.82%. FTSE 100 up 70 to 6,726.

0934: Russia's Economics ministry is now forecasting the country's rate of economic growth next year to come in at -0.8%. Acting as a backdrop, Interfax cites a top diplomat as having said Russia sees a "real chance" to end the war in Ukraine.

0930: Markit's construction sector purchasing managers' index (PMI) for the UK slipped to a reading of 59.4 for November from 61.4 in the month before (consensus: 61).

0842: Stocks have started the morning higher, with the Footsie leading gains amongst its peers in Europe despite a tumble overnight in US equities. Shares are mirroring the bounce in commodities, with miners and oil-related companies leading the gains early on. Acting as a backdrop, there is quite a bit of market commentary early on regarding the plummet yesterday in the rouble. As well, Russia has abandoned its South Stream project gas pipeline project. There is little on the economic agenda for today, although Fed chair Janet Yellen is due to offer a speech later on. FTSE 100 up 63 to 6,724