It was a big day for London's stock market yesterday, with events in the US providing the perfect tonic for both Wall Street and London, to say nothing of the rest of Europe and other global markets.
There were plenty of dealers and market-makers prepared to bet that the twin pieces of apparently bullish news from across the Atlantic the now almost certain election of George W. Bush as the president of the US and a reassuring speech by Mr Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, could provide the trigger for a yearend rally by equity markets. While many were calling the start of a pre-Christmas rally, some pessimists continued to maintain the opposite view that the tide of bad news from the tech and related areas of the market had still some way to go.
The good news for investors was a sharp rally right across the board in London, with the UK's benchmark index, the FTSE 100, spiralling upwards along with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and a resurgent Nasdaq Composite Index.
At its best during London trading hours, and only minutes before the FTSE 100 closed, the Dow was up 323 points, or 3 per cent, and the recently battered Nasdaq was up 215 points, or 8.2 per cent, the latter despite another serious casualty in the tech area, 3Com.
The US presidential election news, where a Florida court ruled out further hand recounts in several counties, was known at the outset in London and helped to get the market off to a positive start.
The final thrust by the FTSE 100 came with Mr Greenspan's speech to bankers in New York, which mentioned the loss in momentum of the US economy. This was interpreted by market observers as increasing the chances that the next move in US interest rates will be downwards.
The 140.3 point rise in the FTSE 100 index was the biggest points and percentage gain recorded by the index since July 3rd, when the market was embarking on an ultimately unsuccessful rally as the third quarter was getting under way.
There were powerful performances too from the more junior indices, but the outstanding showing came from the Techmark 100 which set a scalding pace from the outset and eventually sprinted up 141.1, or 5.5 per cent, to 2,717.97.
The FTSE 250, meanwhile, added 64.3 at 6,501.9, a point off its best of the day, while the SmallCap settled 24.8 higher at 3,249.7.
It was emphatically a new-economy day, with 19 out of the top 20 performers in the FTSE 100 coming from the TMT areas. Amvescap, the fund management group, was the odd man out, responding to a push by HSBC.
Turnover was 1.8 billion shares.
