London shares wallowed as the market tried to fix on the timing of the next swing back to technology stocks.

There were no data to grip on to and while there is a lot to look forward to this week, none of it promises to be very controversial.

Footsie closed 50.1 higher at 6,525.5 ahead of the publication of last month's UK's Monetary Policy Committee minutes tomorrow and, more importantly, the Humphrey Hawkins speech to Congress on Thursday by Mr Alan Greenspan, the Federal Reserve chairman.

The twice-yearly Hawkins update on the economy is often used by Mr Greenspan as a device to cool an over-enthusiastic market.

Nevertheless, with UK and US interest rates seen as near the top of the cycle, there are few worries that he will come out with one of his shock comments such as the "irrational exuberance" tag of a couple of years ago.

The sector workings of the market have been more significant but could also have started to grind to a halt and several strategists are wondering if the recent volatility is beginning to ease.

The big shake-down of the TMT stocks - telecom, media and technology - appears to have run its course and so has the reversal into the classic defensives; the rally in oil stocks and pharmaceuticals is seen to have ended and the market is in limbo.

The trading range of the FTSE 100, which is often one of the key indicators of underlying interest, was very low at around 50 points and turnover of 1.4 billion shares was also at the quiet end of the scale.

It was only when the technology-geared Nasdaq index moved higher in the afternoon that Footsie started to show a little late life.

The technology bias to the day was reflected in the Techmark 100 index, which rose 111.3 to 3,683.22.

The FTSE 250 rose 47 to 6,788.8 and the SmallCap 3.9 to 3,392.9.

Lehman Brothers, in its morning strategy note, reflected the fund manager indecision which was restraining an underlying appetite for equities.

"Understandably, investors are looking for the next big idea," said Lehman. "Having seen the defensive/stable growth stocks outperform since early March, many feel the time has come to rotate towards something more exciting, be it TMT, cyclicals or financials. For our part we think it is too early to abandon the defensive/stable growth stocks."

On the other hand the technology sector had some speculative support. Freeserve, the Internet service provider majority owned by Dixons, jumped sharply on rumours that a takeover by T-Online of Germany could be back.

Telecoms were strong, headed by Vodafone as the UK's biggest company confirmed that its negotiations with Airtel of Spain had gone unconditional.