A fresh burst of strength in many of the London stock market's "new economy" areas of telecoms, high techs and media stocks was the feature of a bullish day for London equities.
The gains were initially triggered by Wall Street's excellent performance on Friday, which followed a much better than expected non-farm payroll report.
The blue chip gains were accompanied by equally impressive performances by the rest of the FTSE indices.
The FTSE 250 and SmallCap indices, rampant last week, climbed to record highs, while the FTSE 100, which began to look vulnerable in midmorning, raced higher during the afternoon, finishing the session on a buoyant note.
London's overall performance was even more impressive given that Wall Street's leading indicator, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, fell away sharply after an brisk start.
Up 16 points during the first few minutes of the US trading session the Dow subsequently came under some hefty downside pressure, dropping more than 114 points not long after London finished for the day.
When the curtain fell on the London session the FTSE 100 showed an 80.3 gain at 6,567.8, extending its rise over the past five trading sessions to 468.2, or 7.7 per cent.
The FTSE 250 index, meanwhile, advanced a further 62.3 to 6,838.9, having hit 6,853.7, while the FTSE SmallCap jumped a further 39.6 to a closing record of 3,520.7, after an intra-day peak of 3,521.1.
"New economy" stocks mostly provided the thrust for the market, with results and a progress report from Pearson, owner of the Financial Times, triggering another burst of support for the shares, which approached their all-time high.
And there were sympathetic gains for other media stocks, such as BSkyB, which topped the FTSE 100 performance list, Carlton Communications and Reuters.
There was a frisson of unease as news of the move into the British internet market by AltaVista, the US group, hit shares in Freeserve, the internet service provider, and those of BT. Dixons, which has an 80 per cent stake in Freeserve and has performed strongly in recent weeks, also fell sharply.
