The five-day sequence of winning performances by London's leading stocks was brought to a halt yesterday by flurries of persistent profit-taking prompted by a disappointing overnight showing by Wall Street.

But the selling pressure in London, which was never of any size, did not encompass the whole of the market. On the contrary, the second-line stocks continued to march forward, with the FTSE 250 extending its run and posting new intraday and closing highs, it added 51.3 to finish at 6,062.1. The FTSE SmallCap finished at 2.703.1 and improvement of 6.7). The FTSE 100 ended the session a net 23.2 off at 6,597.4.

Turnover in equities reached 1.27 billion shares, shared evenly by FTSE 100 stocks and the rest of the market.