Leading shares saw a strong performance in early trade, taking their lead from Wall Street's healthy gains and largely positive performances by Asian markets overnight.

After 15 minutes of trade, the FTSE 100 was 41.6 points higher at 5400.1.

However, a lack of domestic data or corporate news was expected to keep investors on the sidelines ahead of next week's key developments.

On Tuesday, Chancellor Gordon Brown is to unveil his pre-Budget statement which could include new spending plans.

Even more crucially, at midday on Thursday the Bank of England is due to make an announcement on interest rates following the latest monthly monetary policy committee meeting.