Equities staged a re-run of their Wednesday performance yesterday, with front-line stocks always looking vulnerable - despite Wall Street's strong upside performance - and the junior indices making further progress. The reluctance of institutions to chase the leaders reflected the absence of any of the long-expected takeover moves in the banking and telecoms areas, plus more worries about the prospect of further increases in domestic interest rates in the short term.

There were expressions of concern among some London dealers at the British leaders' reluctance to move ahead, given the powerful performance of Wall Street. Strong gains by technology stocks on Wall Street were behind the big gains in the FTSE 250.

There was more heavy turnover right across the market, with the 6 p.m. figure reaching 2.3 billion shares, eclipsing the recent run of exceptional levels of business and the highest daily total in London equities for more than two years.