By Sudip Kar-Gupta
LONDON (Reuters) - The FTSE 100 was steady on Thursday, as a rise in travel and airline shares helped to offset a fall in major mining stocks.
Yet many investors were refraining from buying up large positions on European stock markets ahead of a meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB) later in the day. The Bank of England is also expected to keep interest rates unchanged at record lows on Thursday.
ECB President Mario Draghi will present updated forecasts for growth in output and inflation at a news conference after the meeting. The euro zone's central bank could extend its debt purchases to include corporate bonds, but is unlikely to announce any radical move to shore up the economy, such as printing money to buy government bonds.
The blue-chip FTSE 100 index (FTSE) was flat at 6,719.98 points by the middle of the trading session. The index has risen by around 10 percent from lows in October but is down by around 0.4 percent since the start of 2014.
Software company Sage (L:SGE) rose 5.5 percent, the best-performing FTSE stock in percentage terms, after several broker upgrades following better-than-expected earnings on Wednesday.
"We were buying Sage yesterday on the back of their numbers and then quickly sold out this morning for a profit," said Dafydd Davies, partner at Charles Hanover Investments.
TUI Travel (L:TT) also rose 4 percent after posting higher profits that beat market forecasts.
EasyJet (L:EZJ) also advanced by 2 percent after the airline and its Irish peer Ryanair (I:RYA) both reported higher passenger numbers.
The airline sector was also boosted by an announcement from British finance minister George Osborne that he was scrapping air passenger duty for children.
However, mining stocks underperformed, with Anglo American (L:AAL) falling 2.6 percent and Rio Tinto (L:RIO) retreating by 2.3 percent after price target cuts from Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
(Additional reporting by Alistair Smout; Editing by Kevin Liffey)