A late uptick by the market's leaders disguised a subdued trading session at the end of what was a generally encouraging week for the FTSE 100 index yesterday.
Early in the session, it looked likely that the three-day run of gains in the front-line stocks was about to grind to a halt. Indeed, Footsie looked weak until the afternoon when hints of a positive opening by Wall Street encouraged London's dealers to nudge prices higher. The Dow Jones Industrial Industrial Average never raced ahead but managed to post a 25 points gain in early trading.
There was rarely any real weight of selling pressure in the stock market.
Instead, there was a definite shift of interest from the market to the football World Cup being played in France, and particularly to the crucial England-Colombia match played last night which determined whether the former would progress into the second round.
When the curtain finally dropped on the session, the FTSE 100 index showed an 18.5 gain at 5,877.4, extending its gain on the week to 129.3, or 2.2 per cent.
But it was a much less successful period for the two junior FTSE indices, the 250 and Small Cap. The former eased 5.4 to 5,522.3 yesterday, extending the fall on the week to 76.2, or 1.4 per cent.
