London's stock market coped reasonably well in the face of some worryingly weak domestic and European economic data and ended the day modestly higher, bringing a halt to the four session sequence of losing performances by the FTSE 100 index.
By the end of a tense trading session, the FTSE 100 regained the 5,800 level to finish up 13.5 at 5,809.6, having fallen back to 5,766.6 at its worst of the day and reached a high of 5,833.4, shortly after Wall Street opened.
The FTSE 250, meanwhile, made good progress over the session and never looked likely to drop into negative territory, eventually closing 28.4 higher at 6,602.3.
On the other hand the FTSE SmallCap, although never under too much pressure on the downside, was always modestly lower and finished 2.1 off at 3,105.0.
On a day when the TMT (technology, media and telecom) stocks were given a rough ride in the market, the Techmark 100 gave a creditable performance, settling 3.89 up at 2,020.10, having dropped to 1,992.83 at its worst of the day.
The market had to negotiate a tricky morning session that saw the telecoms face up to another bout of weakness in reaction to a report that KPN, the Dutch telecoms group, was lining up a big rights issue.
The domestic economic news showed a worryingly weak survey of the manufacturing sector, which showed a decline to the lowest level since January 1999. And that reading tied in with similarly bad news from Europe where the purchasing managers' index was also at its lowest level since January 1999.
Yesterday's early decline had prompted some dismay among dealers. But the subsequent rally in London and the US, as UK markets closed, brought an overall view that the FTSE 100 remained locked in a rather narrow trading range of between 5,700 and 6,000.
