Market Report - London

London's equity market emerged from another nervous day in good heart, with the leaders recovering from a mid-session bout of nerves and the two junior indices marching ahead.

The FTSE 100 index swung in a near 80-point arc during the day, moving up almost 40 points in the early part before falling rapidly just after the US non-farm payroll report, only to rally when Wall Street delivered its verdict. The Dow Jones Industrial Aver age surged ahead on the report, jumping over 100 points not long after London closed.

At the close, the FTSE 100 index had gained 31.8 at 5,969.8. That rise reduced the fall over the shortened trading week to 40.5.

There were no such inhibitions for the junior FTSE indices, the Mid-250 and SmallCap, which continued on their merry way, hitting record intra-day and closing levels. The latter posted its eighth consecutive advance, bolstered by sterling's latest decline and the continued spate of bids among the smaller companies.

Around a dozen new bids, bid approaches or mergers were announced during the shortened trading week, with three more unveiled yesterday, for SDX Business Systems and Gibbons, the printing inks company and Con- centric, the engineering group.