London stocks kicked off Wednesday trade on a positive note, underpinned by strength in energy shares, while investors braced for the release of U.S. consumer price data for fresh insights into the Federal Reserve's interest rate-cut trajectory.

The resource-heavy FTSE 100 index was up 0.6%, as of 0720 GMT, while the more domestically oriented FTSE 250 index gained 0.5%.

Shares of oil and gas companies rose 1% after uncertainty over the security of supplies from the Middle East pushed oil prices higher.

Market attention is predominantly fixed on the U.S. consumer price inflation data for March, due later in the day, where a robust figure could potentially push rate-cut bets further back into the year.

UK investors are also poised to closely monitor the European Central Bank's monetary policy meeting on Thursday, and Britain's GDP figures on Friday.

Among individual stocks, shares of Tesco climbed 1% after the country's biggest retailer forecast a further increase in profit in the new financial year amid strong demand and new customers.

(Reporting by Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)