U.K. stocks advanced on Wednesday as rising crude prices lifted energy stocks. The upside remained capped by a stronger pound after Bank of England's Governor Andrew Bailey played down expectations of negative interest rates.
The benchmark FTSE 100 edged up 14 points, or 0.2 percent, to 6,768 after closing 0.7 percent lower on Tuesday.
BP Plc rose about 2 percent and Royal Dutch Shell gained 1.5 percent as oil received a boost from a weaker dollar to hover near 11-month highs.
Spectris declined 1.6 percent. The instrumentation company reported that its like-for-like sales in the fourth quarter decreased 7 percent.
Persimmon lost 2 percent. The housebuilder reported total Group revenues of 3.33 billion pounds in 2020, compared to 3.65 billion pounds, prior year.
Recruitment company PageGroup fell over 1 percent. The company reported fourth quarter Group gross profit of 165.5 million pounds, a decline of 20.2 percent in constant currencies year-on-year.
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