A stunning performance from BT and other telecoms stocks, coupled with another burst of Internet-inspired strength in other FTSE 100 stocks, drove London's benchmark index sharply higher for the fourth consecutive trading session.

Without those gains the sequence of winning performances from the 100 index would have ground to a halt as many of the cyclical stocks, which have mostly been the driving force behind the market's advance, suffered from pockets of profit-taking.

That was most emphatically not the case in the rest of the market, however, where the FTSE 250 and SmallCap indices continued to hit record intra-day and closing highs.

And adding to the comfort level in London was a market-friendly US non-farm payroll report for February, which was viewed by some observers as taking some of the heat out of the calls for a rise in US interest rates.

Markets on both sides of the Atlantic have been factoring in further rises in US interest rates, possibly as soon as the next meeting of the US Federal Reserve's rate-setting open market committee, scheduled for March 21st, the same day as British Chancellor Mr Gordon Brown delivers his budget speech.

The US news showed 43,000 jobs created, against a consensus forecast of 200,000-plus, while average hourly earnings were 0.3 per cent higher, in line with market expectations.

Commenting on the market's latest surge, the head of institutional sales at a leading UK brokerage said the big funds had returned to the market and were "hunting for the high tech/internet stocks, and they want as much as they can get; this doesn't feel like a market under pressure; there is a lot of money chasing the `new economy' stocks," he said. He agreed with other dealers that the market is now looking set fair to launch a challenge to its intra-day peak of 6,950.6, "possibly before the end of the month", he continued.

At the close of trading the FTSE 100 index was 55.4 higher at 6,487.5, extending its gain over the past four sessions to 387.9, or 6.4 per cent.