Investors' positive mood appears to stem from this morning's Nationwide announcement that house prices are on the up once more.
London's flagship stock index rose above 4,000 points today, with investors reacting positively to news of a surprise house price increase and positive signals from the G20 conference.
By 13:00 BST, the FTSE 100 was trading at 4,053 - almost 2.5 percent up on the day. A strong performance was being registered for share prices for all sectors represented in the index, meaning that the overall rise was not being driven by outperformance in any one category.
Earlier today, Nationwide building society announced that the value of the typical UK property rose 0.9 percent in March, sparking hopes that Britain's beleaguered property market could soon experience a turnaround. Reports from London's Excel centre, where the G20 summit to discuss ways of solving the global financial crisis is being held, also suggested that an agreement was close to being reached.
Joshua Raymond, market strategist at City Index, commented: "We are certainly benefitting from more positive signs from the UK housing market, with house prices rising for the first time since 2007. Recently we have started to see stronger housing data from Europe and the US and this is spurring optimism that house prices worldwide are closer to a recovery than first thought."
The FTSE has lost around 40 percent of its value since the onset of the credit crunch in mid-2007. Global indices are also down by similar margins.
