A welcome bounce by a handful but not all of the recently battered TMT (technology, media and telecoms) stocks, plus positive performances from oils, pharmaceuticals and banks, helped the FTSE 100 recover some of its lost poise yesterday.

Adding to the better feel to the market was more support for some of the defensive sectors, such as tobaccos and utilities and a rally in recently-bruised Railtrack.

But while the 100 index delivered a reasonably solid showing for most of the session, the midcap and smallcap stocks, represented by the FTSE 250 and SmallCap indices, tended to give ground.

The FTSE 100 index eventually settled a net 37.1 ahead at 6,382.1, not that far away from its session high of 6,393.7. But the final gain was hard won, with the index sliding in the early afternoon to record a double-figure decline before stabilising and moving ahead.

For the second and third-ranking stocks it was a much more difficult day, with both the FTSE 250 and SmallCap indices never looking likely to emerge from negative territory. The 250 closed 22.9 off at 6,641.2 and the SmallCap finished 16.8 down at 3,293.1.

Many observers were impressed, however, with London's initial response to the losses on Wall Street overnight.

In the US the Dow Jones Industrial Average lost another 167 points. Even more unsettling for London was the slide in the tech-laden Nasdaq Composite which dropped another 151 points, finishing well below the psychologically important 3,000 level.

Wall Street's problems stemmed from the constant flow of bad news from the TMT areas coupled with the still unresolved US presidential election. US markets remained uncertain at the outset yesterday, with both the Dow and the Nasdaq rallying after a choppy start to the session. There was not much in the way of domestic economic news to lead the London market yesterday, although there was support for equities from the firm performance of gilts in the wake of the encouraging outcome of the auction of 2.25 billion of long-dated stock.

There was good news for house builders as the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors published its October survey of house prices, which it said rose for the first time in five months.

A number of the house building stocks such as Barratt Developments, Berkeley Group, Bryant Group, Persimmon and Prowting, have been moving ahead recently and approaching their best levels of the year.

Turnover in equities eventually reached 1.6 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count.