Footsie scores in second half after conceding early losses

How things can change in such a short space of time. Only minutes after the start of official trading in London equities, England were one up against Brazil in the quarter final of the football World Cup and apparently coasting, while the stock market slid again.

FTSE 250: 5,555.1 (+5.6); FTSE SmallCap: 2,366.4 (-10.0)

Only seconds later and Brazil were level, eventually to go on and defeat England. So it was with the stock market, where a poor opening was reversed as FTSE index options and the FTSE futures expired simultaneously, inspiring a strong rally and subsequent strong finish to the trading session.

The solid performance by the market brought an end to a sequence of three consecutive and heavy declines in the 100 index.

While the blue-chip index prospered it was not such a successful day for the more junior indices. The 250 just managed to finish in positive territory, while the Techmark 100, which has taken a fearful hammering recently hitting record lows almost non-stop, put on a much more solid showing.

By the finish of a day of substantial swings in sentiment - mostly inspired by the technicalities of the index options and futures expiries - the FTSE 100 was left with a 25.0 gain at 4,605.3, having been down 74.0 at a session low of 4,506.3 and up 61.1 at a day's best of 4,641.4.

The FTSE 250 index was finally 5.6 better at 5,555.1, its best of the day, and well clear of its 5,523.3 low point. The Techmark 100 was up 6.21 at 874.7, after an early decline to 854.92. Languishing at the bottom of the pile was the SmallCap, which lost 10.0 to 2,366.4.

Over what was a difficult week for the market, which had to face persistent waves of selling pressure after a short-lived uptick last Monday, the FTSE 100 was down 25.5, or 0.5 per cent, the best performance of the front-line indices.

Of the winners and losers, the banks put on a good performance, recouping some of the ground lost since the shock profits warning issued by Abbey National earlier in the week.

On the other hand, the casualties in the insurance stocks included Friends Provident and Britannic.