There was at least one dealer and one big US investment bank more than glad to see the back of the week in the market. And what a week it turned out to be.

It kicked off with the spectacular results of what, apparently, was one of the worst cases of an input error, which wiped 130 points off the FTSE 100 at a stroke just before the close of trading on Monday, only for the market to recoup all of that lost ground first thing on Tuesday morning.

And while that drama was being played out and debated around the trading desks and in the press, the market got another 50 basis points reduction in US interest rates, the fifth so far this year. Giving Wall Street and, therefore, global markets an additional fillip was the decision of the US Federal Reserve's open market committee to remain on an easing bias on monetary policy.

But while London's equity market extended its recent upward move to a fourth consecutive session yesterday, it still finished the week a long way short of the 6,000 level it lost back in March.

Yesterday saw equities advance across a broad front, with the FTSE 250 ending at the day's best and the FTSE 250 the merest margin off its session high. The Techmark 100 performed almost as well.

But the FTSE 100's closing gain of 10.5 at 5,915.0 was well short of its session best of 5,942.2, partly because of a rather stodgy performance by Wall Street, where the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down around 40 points as London closed. Its reluctance was also being attributed to concerns about stock overhangs, particularly in the telecommunications arena.

Around 3.6 billion shares in Vodafone will become sellable in June, while a large number of BT shareholders are expected to let their rights to the 5.9 billion issue lapse or to sell them in the market, leaving an overhang of possibly 250 million BT shares.

The FTSE 250, meanwhile, closed 41.1 higher at 6,582.7, the SmallCap 7.9 up at 3,118.2 and the Techmark 100 up 19.86 at 2,058.06.

Turnover in equities reached 1.67 billion shares.