* Oils firmer as crude holds steady
* Sage knocked by read-across from Intuit
By Jon Hopkins
LONDON, Aug 21 (Reuters) -Britain's leading share index added 0.2 percent in early trade on Friday, modestly extending Thursday's rally after overnight gains on Wall Street, with heavyweight oils firmer as crude prices held steady.
By 0756 GMT, the FTSE 100 index was 11.28 points higher at 4,767.86 after closing up 1.43 percent, or 66.91 points on Thursday, driven mainly by a rally from heavyweight commodity and financial issues.
Oil majors provided the main strength for the blue chips early on Friday as crude held around $73 a barrel, with BP, BG Group, Royal Dutch Shell, Cairn Energy and Tullow Oil up 0.6 to 1.0 percent.
"I suspect we'll have a fairly quiet day as generally it's been a quiet week, with volumes across the world very slim at the moment, and nothing much on the corporate or economic front to provide interest" said Jim Wood-Smith, head of research at Williams de Broe.
"The market doesn't want to go down at the moment, with buyers coming in to each dip and quite solid buying support for the FTSE below 4,700. It's just having a little pause for breath before we can expect it to go back upwards," Wood-Smith added.
Selected financial issues found support, with fund manager Schroders up 1.5 percent and insurer Old Mutual gaining 1.6 percent, reflecting firmer equity valuations.
Banks were in the main higher, with the sector buoyed by gains in heavyweight HSBC, up 0.5 percent, while Lloyds Banking Group and Standard Chartered added 1.3 and 0.1 percent, respectively.
U.S. stocks rose for a third straight session on Thursday, with financial stocks leading the gainers after U.S. manufacturing data pleased, although Asian stock markets were mixed on Friday, keeping a wary eye on volatile Chinese shares.
Miners also added some strength to the blue chips, although overall the sector was mixed. Vedanta Resources, Fresnillo and Xstrata gained 1.4 to 2.1 percent; but Lonmin, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto lost 0.3 to 0.8 percent.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has cleared Rio Tinto's sale of its Jacobs Ranch coal mine, the company said on Friday.
Intertek was the top FTSE 100 riser, up 2.5 percent, buoyed by a double upgrade to "buy" from "underperform" by Banc of America-Merrill Lynch.
The broker said taking a longer-term view of Intertek's markets suggests substantial re-rating potential.
SAGE FALLS
Sage Group was the top FTSE 100 faller, retracing some of the gains it made on Thursday with a 2.2 percent drop, after U.S. financial software peer Intuit said overnight that its fiscal 2010 earnings would be below analysts' estimates.
WPP Group fell back as well, down 2.1 percent, having seen strong gains late on Thursday which traders attributed to a short-squeeze ahead of the adverting firm's results, due next week.
Among the mid caps, Rightmove jumped 11 percent higher after the property website said it is confident 2009 operating profit will exceed current market expectations as it posted above-forecast first-half results.
No major domestic economic data will be released on Friday, so investors' focus will be on July U.S. existing home sales data in the afternoon, which are seen at 4.99 million in July, up from 4.89 million in June.
The market will also scour a speech by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke before the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Economic Symposium later in the day for more clues on the outlook for the world's largest economy. (Editing by Rupert Winchester)