London's stock market was down but most definitely not out yesterday, suffering widespread losses but still managing to shrug off the worst effects of Wall Street's rather alarming overnight slide.
All the main indices came under pressure, finishing down on the day, but losses were mostly well contained, although the recently fashionable Techmark 100 index suffered a nasty setback.
At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 55.3 at 6,411.2, having fallen to a day's low of 6,387.2.
The FTSE 250 was finally 45.8 off at 6,743.5, having fallen to 6,736.6 at worst, while the FTSE SmallCap lost 29.0 to 3,491.0, after 3,488.1.
By far the worst of the indices was the Techmark 100 which dropped 187.5, or 3.3 per cent, to 5,413.8. But it was pointed out that the Techmark's setback coincided with a poor opening for the Nasdaq Composite yesterday. It was down 125 points in early trading.
The aftermath of Wall Street's dramatic retreat on Tuesday, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average drop more than 400 points before finishing 374 points lower, some 3.7 per cent, brought extreme nervousness but no evidence of any panic selling first thing.
And that was enough to induce plenty of support for London during early dealing. Even more influential in supporting the FTSE 100 was a surge of buying interest in the two oil majors, BP Amoco and Shell, after the overnight spike in crude oil prices.
Brent crude came down yesterday, in the wake of reports that Saudi Arabia and Iran had agreed on the need for "adequate" oil supplies.
There was also support for London's determined stance from Wall Street's recovery yesterday after a slightly nervous opening. The Dow, down 64 points not long into the session, posted a near three-figure gain after London closed.
The Dow's rally came after another speech made by Alan Greenspan, chairman of the US Federal Reserve, this time to bankers in Texas. It was comments made on Monday by Mr Greenspan and also by Arthur Levitt, chairman of the US Securities and Exchange Commission, who spoke of the "casino mentality" in US stock markets, that helped unnerve Wall Street, along with the profits warning issued by Procter & Gamble.
Dealers said the market had coped well with the US sell-off story, but remained uneasy over the prospect of more rate rises in the US, where the next meeting of the US Federal Reserve's open market committee is expected to bring a further increase.
That meeting is scheduled for March 21st, the same day Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, delivers his budget statement in the House of Commons. Turnover in equities reached 2.3 billion shares.
