By Sruthi Shankar and Shashwat Chauhan
(Reuters) - Britain's FTSE 100 index rose for the third straight session on Thursday after breaching its record-high level again, buoyed by a slate of upbeat earnings and merger talks tied to Standard Chartered (LON:STAN).
The blue-chip FTSE 100 ended 0.3% higher after hitting a record high of 7,949.57 in intraday trading, the third time it has hit a new peak in less than a week.
Standard Chartered jumped 11.4% to record its best day in more than nine months after Bloomberg News reported that First Abu Dhabi Bank is pressing ahead with an all-cash bid of $30 billion-$35 billion for the Asia-focussed bank.
AstraZeneca (NASDAQ:AZN) rose 4.1%, logging its biggest single-day percentage gain in nearly a year, after the drugmaker forecast earnings growth in 2023.
"The broad environment is a really positive one for the UK equity market," said James Klempster, deputy head of multi-asset at Liontrust.
"The last couple of years have had an environment that suits the kind of sector composition that the UK has, so it's not a surprise to see UK generally faring well."
Meanwhile, Bank of England policymakers disagreed about where interest rates need to go to tame inflation, with Governor Andrew Bailey stressing the uncertainty of the outlook, a week after the BoE suggested its run of rate hikes might be peaking.
Investors will keep a close eye on the UK gross domestic product (GDP) data due to be published on Friday, a key metric in gauging the state of the economy.
Weighing the FTSE 100 down were losses in Entain (LON:ENT) , which tumbled 14.0% after MGM's chief executive officer said on Wednesday that the company had "moved on" from the gambling firm amid speculation of a takeover.
Watches of Switzerland Group slumped 11.0% after it gave its quarterly trading update, taking the domestically-focussed FTSE 250 index 0.1% lower.