Late buying helped the London market stage a modest recovery from its recent bout of interest rate worries, and the FTSE 100 index managed to close on a firm note.

A weak start to trading on Wall Street following the publication of US wholesale prices data, which rose 1.9 per cent in June, the biggest monthly jump since January 1997, that caused Footsie to stumble in afternoon trading.

The index briefly fell into negative territory in the last hour of the session as the all too familiar jitters on interest rates and the direction of the New York market held sway.

But, for once this was not a day when Wall Street set the tone and a determination among traders to move the market ahead soon reasserted itself.

That keenness among dealers had been seen from the outset in spite of several factors that might have been expected to act as a constraint on the market's advance.