London's equity market struggled hard to remain in positive territory yesterday, eventually managing to post minimal gains as turnover levels fell away sharply in the run-up to the Christmas/millennium holiday.

Dealers said they expected - and hoped - that the market would run down quietly to the holiday period, but warned that there remained plenty of scope for some pre-Christmas fireworks across the globe.

The big news event of the week is today's meeting of the US Federal Reserve's interest rate-setting Open Market Committee, expected to announce the outcome of its deliberations shortly after 7 p.m. London time.

Wall Street's closing performance on Friday was said by dealers to have been rather disappointing, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up some 12 points, having posted a 138-point gain at its best of the session. Consequently, London made a dull start to the session, the FTSE 100 slipping around 17 points before embarking on a good rally which drove the index ahead around midday. At the close, it had managed only a 6.6 rise at 6,731.2.