FTSE 100: Carnival sails ahead as blue-chips extend gains Carnival, whose share price has been hurt this year by the capsizing of the Costa Concordia off the Italian coast, added 3.2pc as analysts at Exane BNP Paribas stayed positive on the cruise business. Recent US macro data have been supportive, i.e. consumer spending / confidence. And the news flow from peers and Carnival executives has also been positive, all pointing to faster than expected recovery in bookings post the Concordia/Allegra issues," said the broker. Carnival was joined by the miners, which, as on Monday, helped to drag the benchmark index higher in tandem with rising copper prices. Rio Tinto put on 3.3pc and Antofagasta gained 2.9pc. Hopes that a meeting of European Union leaders this week might lead to new measures to tackle the region's debt crisis, which has worsened in recent weeks on fears over Spain's banks and a possible Greek exit from the euro zone, also tempted investors to buy up battered stocks. The FTSE 100 climbed 28 points to 5332 and the FTSE 250 added 73 points to 10508. "The market has had enough down days, and now some of the value-pickers have come out," said Basil Petrides, a Hartmann Capital equities and derivatives sales trader . Having made gains on Monday following its deal to buy investment firm, FRM, Man Group succumbed to profit-taking. The hedge fund manager slipped 2.2pc. Defensives were out of favour too: Imperial Tobacco shed 1.2pc and AstraZeneca fell 1pc. Amongst the second-liners, HomeServe plunged 24pc after saying "historical issues" at the home repair and insurance group would be investigated by regulator the Financial Services Authority (FSA), following an internal probe into possible mis-selling. HomeServe, which has seen sales and shares slide since October after suspending its UK telesales while it revised sales techniques and marketing material, said the FSA's investigation would take a number of months to complete. The group also said on Tuesday that it planned to reduce the size of its core UK business to create "a more sustainable business from which to grow," while focusing on expanding in its international markets.