As in the rest of Europe, Wall Street helped shares in London to another set of record highs, in a day once again marked by frenzied speculative activity.
The equity market took off after US employment numbers, released at 1.30 p.m. London time, showed that wage pressures were still subdued. Within 40 minutes, the FTSE 100 index had reached its high for the day of 6,722.1, up 118.4.
On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained more than 280 points during London trading hours and looked within sight of its all-time high. That kept UK shares buoyant throughout the afternoon.
By the close, the FTSE 100 index was up 88.5 at a new closing high of 6,772.2. And the FTSE 250 and SmallCap indices also established new peaks, rising 82.4 to 6,326.0 and 39.3 to 2,931.6 respectively. Of the three, the FTSE 250 was the best performer of the week, jumping 2.3 per cent.
The techMARK 100 index, established on November 3rd, jumped 6.8 per cent; it has now risen nearly 50 per cent in a month.
