Bolstered by excellent news from two of the FTSE 100's real heavyweights - Barclays Bank and BT - the London market's front-line stocks ran ahead strongly yesterday, ending six straight sessions of often sizeable losses.

And its rally, originally domestically driven, was given increased thrust by a much healthier performance by Wall Street overnight and again at the outset yesterday. "There was a worry that perhaps the UK market really was in a steep decline - the so-called long awaited correction - but today's rally was driven by quality buying," said the head of sales at one London broker.

The FTSE 100 recouped 118.3, or 2 per cent, during yesterday's session, eventually finishing at 5,888.5. And the midcaps, which had backtracked for four consecutive sessions, also perked up, the FTSE 250 index rallying 29.4 to 5,187.0. The FTSE SmallCap index, meanwhile, resumed its upward path, which had been brought to an abrupt halt on Wednesday, closing 9.5 higher at 2,225.8. Turnover in equities reached 1.2 billion shares with FTSE 100 stocks accounting for 57 per cent of the market total.