FTSE set for attack on 6,000 benchmark

Another helter-skelter session in London ended with the FTSE 100 closing a shade below the 5,900 level but still looking perfectly capable of launching a move towards 6,000.

A closing gain of 23.5 to 5,896.0 did not come easy. The London market looked to be cruising to a close comfortably in excess of 5,900 on the Footsie as Wall Street came in on a firm note in the wake of a surprisingly strong first reading of US fourth-quarter gross domestic product. A figure of 5.6 per cent annualised growth shocked many observers who had been looking for a rise in the region of 4.2 per cent. It was quickly interpreted as checking expectations of another reduction in US interest rates after next Tuesday's meeting of the Federal Reserve's open market committee. Up almost 70 points at its best, the FTSE 100 index suddenly began to falter, and subsequently went into a sharp reverse, plummeting more than 100 points in around an hour, only to rally just as quickly during the last 30 minutes of British trading. Traders put much of the turbulence down to Friday afternoon "antics".

Second-line stocks hogged the limelight and never looked like mirroring the leaders' sell-off.

Over the week the FTSE 250 was up 195.0 or 4 per cent, the FTSE AllShare 30.58 or 1.1 per cent, the SmallCap 38.09 or 1.8 per cent and the FTSE 100 a mere 34.8 or 0.6 per cent. Turnover was 1.16 billion shares.