City optimists put profit-takers to flight

The lack of confidence in London's leading stocks over the past four sessions was reversed yesterday as the persistent profit-taking dried up and the optimists returned. Fuelling that optimism was a healthy performance by Wall Street on Monday and keen support for many of the leading consumer and cyclical sectors of the market. London's recovery was all the more impressive given that Wall Street showed an increasingly volatile trend, fluctuating around the 11,000 level.

Wall Street's decline was seen as wholly predictable ahead of tomorrow's Thanksgiving holiday which sees Wall Street closed for that day and open only for a half-session on Friday.

The FTSE 100 index shrugged off an initially uncertain start to the session, which saw the index down over 15 points, and then embarked on a gradual advance. The buying interest in the market reached its peak just before Wall Street opened, with the index posting a 109.3 gain at 6,551.3, before slipping back and then stabilising. At the close, Footsie was 92.2 higher at 6,534.2.

Turnover by the 6 p.m. count was 1.8 billion shares, well up on Monday's figure, but below the enhanced levels of much of the past two weeks.