Shares in London made modest progress on a day when many traders probably wished they were on a beach in the south of France.

Volume was low and there was little in the way of corporate activity, while international markets were also fairly quiet ahead of next week's meeting of the US Federal Reserve.

At least the FTSE 100 started the session on a buoyant note after the Dow Jones Industrial Average had ended last week above 11,000 for the first time since April. At its best, Footsie was 66.7 higher at 6,451.2.

But there was no follow-through on Wall Street yesterday and the blue-chip benchmark drifted back to finish 35.4 up at 6,419.9. That leaves the index well within its long-running 6,000-6,600 trading range.

The middle of the month always sees the release of a raft of economic data but the market was not much moved by the first set of numbers. Producer price figures for July showed a slightly higher-than-expected 0.4 per cent increase in input prices, an indication of manufacturers' costs. However, output or factory gate prices rose 0.2 per cent, in line with analysts' expectations. Today's retail price numbers will be a bigger test of confidence.

The FTSE 250 edged up 5.6 to 6,847.8 while the SmallCap gained 14.8 to 3,411.9. The Techmark 100 index of leading technology stocks advanced 29.27 to 3,522.37.

Advertising group WPP initially pleased investors with its first-half results but the shares drifted lower by the close. Corporate results have been generally supportive of the market in recent weeks.

The UK strategy team at Morgan Stanley Dean Witter argues that "with the lion's share of companies having reported their numbers, we believe that the earnings picture for the UK is good, with a positive/ negative surprise ratio of 2.5. We think that these figures underpin our above-consensus market growth estimate of 12 per cent and yet the UK market remains stuck in a rut.

"Indeed, at the stock level, the relationship between upgrades and price performance seems to us a little perverse. "Some of the worst price performance in the last three months has followed some of the best consensus earnings estimates.

"We believe this merely reflects the strength of sector rotation in recent months. While sector leadership has not been obvious, defensive sectors and stocks have steadily tracked higher."

Turnover was 1.11 billion by the 6 p.m. count, reflecting the holiday season; trade regularly topped two billion shares a day in the first quarter.