"Events, dear boy. Events," said Harold Macmillan when he was asked about the cause of most of his sleepless nights in politics.
The former prime minister's critique could be applied equally to the stock markets, although yesterday it was more a case of "results, dear boy".
A clutch of strong figures sent the FTSE 100 index up almost 70 points in early trading. Not only was the day shaping up for the biggest single-day gain for three weeks but it offered hope of a break in the stifling trading range of the recent past.
There seemed enough mileage to enable Footsie to ignore the sharp slide on the Dow Jones Industrial Average on Wednesday night.
BT, which had been expected to disappoint, came in above expectations and Glaxo Wellcome announced solid figures as well as encouraging news on one of its potential blockbusters.
That news from two of the Footsie's biggest companies counteracted another grim day for the banking sector as Halifax came up with a perfectly decent set of interim results but signalled increasing pressure on future profit margins.
However, the result that marked the turn came from Finland. Nokia, the world's biggest maker of mobile phones, warned that its third-quarter earnings were expected to fall below second-quarter figures due to "the timing of the new product introductions as well as seasonality".
Analysts said it was the first time the former wellington boot maker had put a foot wrong in five years.
The significance of the news was increased because it followed so shortly after very disappointing figures from Ericsson, its close rival and Sweden's biggest company.
Nokia's statement ensured that the Footsie ended the day 35 lower at 6,352.1 in spite of an early afternoon rally by the Dow. Vodafone AirTouch accounted for 34 points. The FTSE 250 fell 9.2 to 6,772.6, the FTSE All-Share 14.53 to 3,057.62 and the Techmark 100 3.57 to 3,683.75.
Meanwhile, there were mixed signals from the latest US economic data.
The eagerly-awaited employment cost index prompted widespread relief after coming out in line with strategists' forecasts and, at 1 per cent, far lower than the last quarter's shock 1.4 per cent rise.
However, durable goods orders for June rose 10 per cent against the previous month and most forecasts had been looking for no gain or even a slight drop.
