A successful expiry of the September FTSE future and index options plus a much better feel to Wall Street helped to arrest the recent slide in London's equity market.

But traders were not entirely convinced of the market's ability to sustain yesterday's rally which brought an end to a five-session sequence of losses to the FTSE 100 index, London's benchmark.

A closing gain of 25.2 to 6,039.8 by the 100 index did not come without a real struggle which saw the index make rapid progress before stuttering and then relinquishing all its hard-won gains just after midday.

At that point, the index dipped into negative territory and threatened to slide below the 6,000 mark, reaching a low point of 6,012.4 before stabilising and embarking on another upward push, helped by an early three-figure rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

While the buyers put in an appearance at the lower level there remains widespread concern among some investors at the prospects of further increases in interest rates here and in the US. Even the slightest disappointment from economic data tends to bring heavy downside pressure on the market.

That nervousness, in London and New York, is expected to keep the pressure on both markets until the next set of interest rate decisions are taken early next month.

Turnover in equities was an encouraging 1.2 billion shares.