UK stocks : FTSE 100 outperforms European stocks

The index hit a two-month low on Friday, probing the 200-day moving average level around 5,730, but after recovering that session it traded in a tight 35 point range on Monday.

Among the top gainers was Lloyds, who rose 3.5 on the session, in volume of over 150 percent of its 90-day average.

The bank has rallied 5.7 percent since the Federal Reserve announced on Friday that it did not expect proposed Basel III rules on banking regulation to be implemented in the United States by the Jan. 1, 2013 deadline.

Banks aside, there was little evidence that the appetite was there among investors to propel riskier stocks -- those which tend to rise more when economic condition improve and fall more in times of economic distress -- higher.

Miners shed 0.7 percent as the uncertainty in the euro zone compounded with weak GDP data from Japan to take the sheen off slightly better trade data from China.

Platinum producer Anglo American lost 2 percent, the largest faller in the FTSE 100, after it gave an update on the strikes in South Africa which have blighted production in its Amplats unit. The miner extended the deadline to 30,000 employees to accept their latest offer or face the sack.

Rather than betting on growth in high-beta stocks, stocks that offered high dividends continued to do well.

British American Tobacco rose 0.3 percent, bringing its gains for the month to 4.7 percent.

An attractive dividend also boosted car insurance firm Admiral, which

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