0930: Shares of Irish pharmaceutical outfit Elan are rising by 7 per cent after receiving a 6.5bn dollar buy-out offer from RP Management.

0834: Buoying sentiment this morning, the leader of Cyprus’s conservatives Nicos Anastasiades was elected as the seventh president of Cyprus after winning 57.5 per cent of the votes in a second round run-off over the weekend. Anastasiades won by the widest margin in 30 years over.

0830: UK stocks have begun the week higher, albeit lagging behind their Continental peers, despite Moody’s decision late on Friday evening to lower its rating on the country’s sovereign debt. Leading gains on the Footsie are shares of Antofagasta and Barclays, following positive comments on both out of analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch. To be had in account for the latter, the minority shareholders of South Africa’s Absa Group on Monday overwhelmingly backed a plan to buy the African operations of parent Barclays for 1.3bn pounds in new shares. Leading falls now is Reckitt Benckiser following a negative ruling from the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On the macroeconomic front, UK Oil&Gas last night forecast that North Sea output will recover towards 2m barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2017, from a level of approximately of 1.475m in 2013. Italian polls are scheduled to close at 14:00. Investors seem to be giving short shrift to the weaker than forecast Chinese PMI figures in overnight. FTSE 100 now at its high of the session, up by 45 to 6,380.