London's equity market delivered another strong performance yesterday, ignoring a nervous overnight showing by Wall Street. It preferred to respond to pockets of good news among the various sectors. Adding fuel to the big gains in London was a superb show by Wall Street yesterday afternoon.

That saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average race higher in the wake of the latest US economic news, the purchasing managers' index and weekly jobless claims. The data were perceived as benign and encouraging the view, now gaining in credibility, that the widely expected increase in US interest rates, after the next FOMC meeting scheduled for June 29th, might not be as much as 50 basis points.

The Dow was up over 140 points shortly after London closed, while the Nasdaq was up more than 160 points.

Noting the latest economic trends in the US and the London market's better trend, Mr Bob Semple, UK strategist at Deutsche Bank said: "The news is moderately encouraging, but my inclination would be to sell into it. The worry is the impact on US profits of rising labour costs."

Unlike recent sessions, when the London market was mostly divided into "new economy/old economy" areas, there was no real pattern to the winners and losers. TMTs were represented in both the best and worst performer tables, although the later upsurge in the Nasdaq gave renewed impetus to the new economy areas.

At the finish of an exciting trading session the FTSE 100 was 111.2 higher at 6,470.5, having hit a session high of 6,476.9. And all the other FTSE indices were buoyant, with the FTSE 250 bursting back through the 6,300 level and closing a net 79.9 up at 6,307.7, the best of the day.

The FTSE SmallCap rose 16.3 to 3,201.8, while the resurgence of TMT stocks continued apace, the Techmark 100 index pushing up another 105.7 to 3,362.0.1, its fifth consecutive gain.

It was by no means all good news for the top 100 stocks. The retail areas had to endure another painful session, with J. Sainsbury registering the worst individual performance in the FTSE 100 list, sliding 10 per cent, having dropped a similar amount on Wednesday when the market registered its distaste with the group's full-year numbers.

Yesterday it was the turn of Boots to cause dismay, its shares plunging almost 8 per cent after poorly-received full-year numbers and a disturbing statement which revealed worrying news on current sales. Turnover in equities was 1.55 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count.