There was not much in it but after a series of surges and wobbles, the FTSE 100 finished just above the 6,400 level.

But there were few among the market's senior traders willing to bet too much on a follow-through after the fourth consecutive advance by the London market's benchmark index.

The big story of the day was that the US Supreme Court had called a halt to the seemingly endless legal battles in Florida, news interpreted in London as pointing to the inevitability of a George W. Bush victory in the US presidential election.

A Bush victory has always been seen as the most likely outcome of the long drawn-out election process. Many traders on both sides of the Atlantic have already factored in a Bush victory and some believe a period of profit-taking might be in prospect.

But Wall Street continued to perform well, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average following up its overnight 42 points gain with a further advance which saw it up 145 points and within striking distance of the 11,000 level, before slipping back later in the US session.

But while the Dow was prospering once again, the Nasdaq Composite, the standard bearer for US technology stocks, suffered renewed weakness, sliding over 70 points not long after London closed.

At the finish of the session the FTSE 100 was 12.6 higher at 6,403.0. At its best, just before Wall Street opened, the index ran up 31 to 6,421.5. At its worst, during the early morning period the index was down 23.8, but was never pressured, dealers said.

But while the benchmark index was rising, the other indices continued to come under fire, burdened by weakness in many of the new economy stocks that make up such a large proportion of their constituents.

The FTSE 250 retreated 23.4 to 6,523.2, ending a sequence of three upside performances, while the FTSE SmallCap lost 4.3 to 3,249.1. The Techmark 100, meanwhile, fell 14.09 to 2,814.72.

The Bush victory news provided renewed upside impetus for the UK drug stocks as well as their US counterparts.

Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, also boosted by the prospect of an official US Federal Trade Commission green light for their merger, were leading lights among the FTSE winners. So was BP Amoco, whose shares shot higher after the company's recent share buy-back activity.