Ironically British Airways is the best performer despite ongoing concerns about the spread of swine flu.

The FTSE 100 index (.FTSE) is up 0.27% to 4,107.37 at 9:40am on Wednesday the 29th of April.

The FTSE 250 (INDEXFTSE:.FTMC) is faring better - up 1.35% to 7,251.42. 

The recovery comes after a turbulent start to the week - fears of a global swine pandemic have impacted negatively on the market.

Ironically British Airways (LON:BAY) is the best performer despite ongoing concerns about the spread of swine flu.

Several companies have imposed restrictions on travel by their employees, especially those with businesses in Mexico.

British Airways shares (LON:BAY) are up 4.12% to 149.00.

Miners, which were hit yesterday on worries over the impact on the world economy, are in demand today.

Rio Tinto and Kazakhmys are the best performers amongst the miners.

Elsewhere, a collapse in the crude price led to a sharp drop in earnings at oil giant Shell over the first quarter. On a current cost of supplies (CCS) basis, earnings fell to $3.3bn from $7.8bn as revenue excluding duties and other levies fell to $58.2bn from $114.3bn.

DIY retailer and Argos owner Home Retail Group reported a 24% drop in full-year profits and said it expects a difficult trading environment ahead. Underlying pre-tax profit dropped to £328m in the 52 weeks to 28 February compared with £433m last year. Total sales are down 1% to £5,897m, with like-for-like sales down 4.8% at Argos and down 10.2% at Homebase.

Music, films, books and software seller HMV expects profits this year to be towards the upper end of market forecasts despite challenging conditions, though it said the book market remained weak during the final quarter. Total sales growth in the 16 weeks ended 25 April was 4.8%, including flat like for like sales. Sales at the HMV stores in UK and Ireland rose 11.7%, including like for like growth of 4.3%.

Write-downs of £147m on its pub portfolio pushed Punch Taverns into a hefty interim loss, with the pub group still "very cautious" on trading going forward.

Latin America-focused precious metal miner Hochschild Mining said it was on track to achieve full year production targets after lifting output in the first quarter.