(Sharecast News) - London's FTSE 100 was up 0.6% at 8,173.17 in afternoon trade on Thursday.

Smurfit Kappa rallied as it hailed a "very strong" first quarter and said box demand has continued to improve, with volume growth in Europe and the Americas.

Standard Chartered gained as it backed its full-year guidance and posted better-than-expected first-quarter profits as it continued to benefit from higher interest rates.

Pre-tax profit rose 6% to $1.9bn, coming in ahead of expectations of $1.4bn. Net profit increased 5% to $1.22bn, comfortably beating expectations of $798m.

Oil and gas giant Shell gushed higher as it reported a 15% jump in earnings in the first three months of the year compared with the final quarter of the year, on the back of higher margins from crude and oil products trading. It also unveiled a new $3.5bn share buyback.

Glencore was in the red as it traded without entitlement to the dividend.

FTSE 100 - Risers

Smurfit Kappa Group (CDI) (SKG) 3,708.00p 6.74%

Standard Chartered (STAN) 733.80p 5.58%

London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG) 9,068.00p 2.58%

Scottish Mortgage Inv Trust (SMT) 853.40p 2.35%

Flutter Entertainment (DI) (FLTR) 15,245.00p 2.32%

Prudential (PRU) 720.40p 2.18%

Diploma (DPLM) 3,694.00p 2.10%

Shell (SHEL) 2,876.50p 2.04%

Taylor Wimpey (TW.) 133.20p 2.03%

Mondi (MNDI) 1,549.50p 1.94%

FTSE 100 - Fallers

Beazley (BEZ) 634.00p -3.79%

Whitbread (WTB) 3,003.00p -3.10%

Antofagasta (ANTO) 2,110.00p -2.68%

Melrose Industries (MRO) 605.20p -2.58%

Glencore (GLEN) 456.00p -2.25%

DCC (CDI) (DCC) 5,460.00p -1.71%

Kingfisher (KGF) 244.60p -1.53%

Fresnillo (FRES) 554.00p -1.51%

Spirax-Sarco Engineering (SPX) 8,770.00p -1.18%

Entain (ENT) 776.20p -1.12%