Remarkable week ends with minimal changes

Shortly after 5 p.m. on Tuesday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 500 points, the Nasdaq Composite showed a startling 575-point fall and all the FTSE indices had closed the London session sharply lower. At that point, it would have been difficult to persuade investors that the London market would finish the week little changed on balance and generally in robust fashion.

And it would have been difficult, too, to imagine that Wednesday's trading systems breakdown in the London market, which caused extreme anxiety the day after Wall Street's gyrations and on the last day of the UK financial year, would fade into the background.

But that was exactly the case yesterday, as a fresh burst of support for the sectors that provoked all that midweek mayhem - the technology, media and telecoms stocks (TMTs) - drove all the FTSE indices sharply higher for the second consecutive session.

And once again the Techmark 100 put on the star performance, roaring ahead another 238.3, or 5.7 per cent, following an even more impressive performance on Thursday, when the index surged 382.02, or 13.4 per cent. It was not simply a revival of faith in the TMTs that was behind the rally, however. Sentiment was still being boosted by the decision on Thursday of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee to leave interest rates on hold.

At the close, the FTSE 100 was up 118.8 at 6,569.0, extending its rise over the past two sessions to 3 per cent. Over the week, the index has risen 29.7. Just as impressive was the FTSE 250, up 74.7 at 6,461.1, reducing the fall on the week to 14 points. And the FTSE SmallCap moved up 23.2 to 3,281.6, cutting the fall in that index to 68.49.

But sentiment in the market was by no means on the upside. In their latest equity market analysis, the UK strategy team at Deutsche Bank said: ["] We believe it is not yet time to press the buy button for UK equities, which continued to under-perform the rest of the world in March."