The recovery in London's equity market moved confidently into a third consecutive trading session yesterday as investors preferred to focus on expected good news and pushed the painful experiences of last week into the background.
The extent of the market's rally yesterday took even the optimists by surprise. At the close the FTSE 100 extended its rally by a further 151.5, or 2.7 per cent, to 5,728.1, for a three-session advance of 413.3, or 5.6 per cent.
It was a similar picture right across the board. The FTSE 250 rose 51.9 to 6,052.0, the FTSE SmallCap 9.9 to 2,899.0 and the Techmark 100 re-crossed the 2,000 mark to finish 35.06 up at 2,034.14.
On the plus side came Wall Street's latest good performances; the Dow Jones Industrial Average raced up 182 points on Monday and followed that up with a further strong showing yesterday, posting a three-figure rise minutes after London closed.
Helping to pump up the volume of buying on Wall Street was a surprise jump in US consumer confidence in March, after five months of decline.
The European Central Bank's rate-setting council meets in Frankfurt tomorrow and many economists expect a 25-basis-point reduction in rates. And the Bank of England's monetary policy committee meets on Thursday to determine UK interest rate policy with some economists also expecting a 25 basis point cut in rates.
Dealers also pointed out that the end of the month and the first quarter on Friday could well herald a fresh injection of money into the market; the institutions have mostly stood back from the recent bout of uncertainty that has seen markets in full retreat.
There remained, however, plenty of issues for the market to fret about. The foot-and-mouth epidemic continued to cause plenty of concerns and the spate of profit warnings associated with the impact of foot-and-mouth on various industries continued to hit some of the leisure- related stocks.
On the international front investors remain extremely wary of the potential for more earnings confessions and shocks from US corporations as the quarterly reporting season hoves into sight.
The market's heavyweight sectors - the oil majors, telecoms, pharmaceuticals and banks - all moved sharply higher yesterday, for various reasons, providing an irresistible upside momentum for the FTSE 100.
Turnover was 2.16 billion shares.
