It may have been Hallowe'en but that did not frighten investors yesterday with the FTSE 100 moving closer to the top of its long-term trading range.
Monday's strong gain in the Dow Jones Industrial Average gave a lift to Footsie at the opening and the blue chip benchmark was never in negative territory during the session.
While the Dow struggled in early trading in the face of disappointing figures from consumer giant Procter & Gamble, the Nasdaq Composite managed a strong rebound. There was further confirmation of a slowing US economy in the form of a sharp drop in US consumer confidence.
There was little in the way of domestic news to encourage investors. Of the big companies to report results, SmithKline Beecham fell sharply and BAT also lost ground.
But the banking sector had a good day, with the announcement of a new cost-cutting plan from Alliance & Leicester sending its shares sharply higher. Mining stocks were also strong, after signs of a pick-up in the aluminium price.
Autonomy, the software company, made a buoyant London debut. The company, which uses probability theory to help computers understand human language, is set to join the FTSE 100 index.
Andrew Lapthorne, UK strategist at Dresdner Kleinwort Benson, said: "We are still focusing on earnings visibility, given our concerns about margin pressures. We are underweight cyclicals but we like Vodafone and the pharmaceuticals for strategic reasons."
The FTSE 100 closed up 50 at 6,438.4, having reached 6,475.8 at its best. The gains were broadly spread.
The FTSE 250 rose 39.8 to 6,629.3, the SmallCap advanced 12.8 to 3,283.4 while the Techmark 100 index of leading technology stocks moved up 36.88 to 3,390.71.
The FTSE 100 has advanced more than 400 points from its intra-day low on October 18th, as concern about high oil prices and corporate profit warnings has receded.
During October as a whole, the FTSE 100 gained 2.3 per cent, the FTSE 250 fell 0.7 per cent, the SmallCap dropped 3.9 per cent and the Techmark 100 slumped 9.2 per cent.
Turnover picked up substantially from Monday's storm-affected levels, with 1.65 billion shares traded.
