THE London stock market took its courage in both hands yesterday and pushed the FT-SE Index decisively through the 4,000 barrier for the first time.

When dealings opened officially in London, the index stood at 4004.2, up 12.0 from Tuesday night's closing level.

The index, which tracks the shares in the largest 100 companies on the stock market, stayed above 4,000 for the whole session - helped by another positive start on Wall Street - and closed the day up 22.9 to 4015.1.

It started on January 1st, 1984 at 1,000 hit 2,000 on March 4th 1987 and 3,060 on August 11th, 1993.

The New York market had closed at a new high on Tuesday night and London share prices took that as a cue to clear the 4,000 hurdle.

The latest spurt was helped by last week's decision of the US central bank not to clamp down on the American economic revival with a rise in interest rates.

All the current British economic data have been favourable to shares and the City's fears about the impact of a Labour government have been calmed by the party's conference at Blackpool this week.

Among those joining in the fun was the pharmaceuticals company Zeneca, reinforced by persistent takeover speculation. It gained 26p to, 1630p.

The group's former colleagues at ICI saw their shares add 17p to 875 1/2p and GKN again flew after a big helicopter order for Westland earlier this week - up 21p to 1170p.

Merchant bank Schroder, another regular subject of takeover speculation, improved 20p to 1405p, while building materials group RMC continued its good run with another 22p increase to 1189p.

Imperial Tobacco, which started life as an independent stock market company on Tuesday after its demerger from Hanson, enjoyed another good day. The shares put on 11p to 404p.

The oil sector was gushing with Enterprise leading the way at 571p, up 17p. BP was 13p better at 685 1/2p and Shell added 12p to 997 1/2p.

Strong underlying profits growth reported by Bank of Scotland saw it move up 9p to 264 1/2p. Pre tax profit for the group in the six months to August 31st rose 24% to a record £324.3 sterling, compared with £261.6 million in the period last year.

The figures were buoyed by first contributions from recently acquired BankWest.

Royal Bank of Scotland was tugged higher by its rival's success, adding 16p to 516 1/2p.

Outside of the FT-SE, profits growth led by luxury watches pushed Time Products 15 1/2p higher to 397 1/2p.

Supermarket chain Kwik Save jumped 18 1/2p to 330p on rumours that it is considering a merger with rival Iceland, whose shares gained 3p to 89 1/2p.