A GALLANT attempt by the market to end Christmas week at a closing peak failed at the final hurdle yesterday, but not before the FTSE 100 index had penetrated the 4,100 mark to establish an all-time intra-day high.
"It was all rather false. Quite simply there was not enough people around to provide the drive to keep Footsie above 4,100," said a senior dealer, one of only a handful manning the trading desks at a big European broker.
Dealing rooms across the City were manned by skeleton staffs, mostly those who drew the short straw in pre-Christmas rotas or those wishing to work off their seasonal excesses.
Footsie ended the truncated trading session, 1.5 easier at 4,091.0.
But there was better news for the second liners in the market, where the FTSE 250, buoyed by a sprinkling of good individual performances, gained 10. to 4,470.5, a fraction off its best of the day. The 250's all-time high of 4,568.6 was reached back in April.
The SmallCap delivered a good showing, climbing 3.6 to 2 169 2.
At one point it looked as if the market would keep going, after moving relatively easily through the 4,100 level to hit a record intra-day high of 4,102.9.
Wall Street's continuing strength, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average climb 33 points on Christmas Eve and a further 23 points on Boxing Day when London was closed encouraged the handful of market makers on duty to lift their opening levels.
There was further stimulus for stocks from a minor flurry of support for the FTSE future. But, once that had run out of steam, the cash market began to backtrack.
Turnover at the 12.30 pm. close came out at a painfully thin 137.2m shares, split almost exactly 50-50 between FTSE 100 and non-FTSE 100 stocks. Details of customer trading volumes and values were not available yesterday.
The gilts market did its best to shore up a flagging equity market with the 10-year gilt up four ticks.
The usual list of New Year" recommendations from the financial press and brokers was said to, have provided some impetus for individual stocks, while the annual gamble on whether the high street retailers have enjoyed bumper pre-Christmas sales was looking to favour the sector's bulls.
Dixons, Next and Marks and Spencer were all prominent in the list of best Footsie performers.
Oil shares continued to build on" an excellent performance throughout the year.
Royal Bank of Scotland, viewed by many observers as one of the potential takeover targets in the financial sector, made rapid progress, spearheading a generally strong banks area.
