Rumours from overseas, one concerning the health of President Yeltsin, and the other the problems affecting President Clinton, took the gloss off what had promised to be another good day for London's equity market.
The stories undermined both Wall Street and London, wiping out early substantial gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and erasing a rally in London's front-line stocks which had propelled the FTSE 100 to within 20 points of its all-time intra-day record.
But it was another session of records for the FTSE Mid-250 and FTSE SmallCap indices.
London's powerful early showing came as something of a surprise to many dealers, who had expected activity in the market to slow to a trickle ahead of Tuesday's Budget and an extensive list of important economic data on both sides of the Atlantic.
The most impressive performance of the FTSE indices over the session and the week came from the SmallCap. That index accelerated to finish the session up 18.5 at a new record intra-day and closing level of 2,554.9. Over the week, the index rose 64.8 points, or 2.6 per cent.
The FTSE Mid-250, meanwhile gained a further 20.7 to a closing high of 5,357.6, after a peak of 5.361.0. Over the five-day period the Mid-250 index was up 117 points, or 2.2 per cent.
The FTSE 100, again upstaged by the smaller indices, ended the day 12.5 down at 5,782.3, 0.6 points down on the week.
Turnover in equities at the 6 p.m. cut-off was 981.8 billion.
