UK stocks ticked higher at open on Friday after data showed Britain’s economic performance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic had been stronger than previously thought, boosting sentiment.

The blue-chip FTSE 100 rose 0.5% by 0713 GMT.

Britain’s gross domestic product(GDP) in the second quarter of 2023 was confirmed at 0.2% from the quarter before, in line with the economists’ forecasts polled by Reuters, as the Office of National Statistics released revisions to official data.

The second quarter GDP was 1.8% larger than in the final quarter of 2019, the last full quarter before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the growth was faster than Germany or France.

Consumer staples and discretionary stocks rose with personal goods, retailers and homebuilders shares climbing over 1% each.

The mid-cap FTSE 250 index added 0.8%, boosted by a 7.7% rise in the shares of Aston Martin after the luxury carmaker said Chairman Lawrence Stroll’s Yew Tree Consortium further raised its stake in the firm by 3.27% to 26.23%.

Severn Trent shares rose 3.0% after the British water supplier said it would raise 1 billion pounds ($1.2 billion) in new equity, including 500 million pounds from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.