THE London stock market, having been sluggish for much of the week, showed surprising strength yesterday in the face of weakness in gilts and European shares.
The FTSE 100 index surged ahead to set new all time closing and intra day highs. The Mid 250 index got within touching distance of its all time high of 4,152.8, but closed just below its best.
"The market seemed to be catching up, after performing disappointingly relative to Wall Street earlier in the week" said Mr Robert Buckland, UK strategist at James Capel. He added that the continued boost to liquidity from falling interest rates was outweighing political concerns and the effect of slowing economic growth on corporate profits.
Takeover speculation continued to flourish with Ladbroke and Standard Chartered two of the top three Footsie performers on the back of renewed bid hopes. But food retailers continued to suffer from the downgrades in the sector which have followed J Sainsbury's profits warning earlier this month.
While the London market is not teeming with gold related stocks, the surge in the bullion price helped RTZ, the diversified mining group, rise nearly 4 per cent on the day. The Mercury World Mining investment trust was the second best performer in the Mid 250.
