A poor start to the Wall Street session - after some slightly disturbing US economic news - coupled with general profit-taking in domestic stocks, left London's equity market struggling for direction yesterday. Wall Street was struggling as London closed, after news of a higher than expected increase in US retail sales in November, which was viewed as increasing the possibility that the US Federal Reserve's open market committee might raise US interest rates after next Tuesday's open market committee meeting.

The FTSE 100 index ended the day a net 8.6 lower at 6,702.1, with many market observers happy to see the index close above the 6,700 level, in the absence of any news about fresh take-over moves in the retail sector, one of the areas behind the market's most recent upsurge.

Turnover in equities was a healthy 1.8 billion shares, with United Biscuits accounting for 134 million shares and Vodafone AirTouch for 116 million shares, followed by Tesco, with 43 million shares traded.