All the portents for London's stock market were ominous yesterday. It was Friday the 13th and just a week away from the 13th anniversary of the 1987 stock market crash.
If that wasn't enough to unnerve even the most optimistic investors, Wall Street was on its knees on Thursday evening, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing a massive 379 points lower, its fifth-biggest points decline of all time, and the Nasdaq Composite within a whisker of posting another three-figure slide.
Oil prices had hit their highest levels since the 1990 Gulf War and the situation in the Middle East was reaching crisis proportions.
But at the end of a trading session always fraught with anxiety for market-makers and dealers, the London market's benchmark index, the FTSE 100, confounded all the doomsters, posting a 77.7 gain at 6,209.6, bolstered mainly by a scintillating showing by Vodafone.
The latter, which lost its pre-eminent position as the UK's biggest company by market capitalisation to BP Amoco for one day, bounced back strongly yesterday, accounting for around 50 FTSE 100 points.
London's rehabilitation came after a weak opening which saw the 100 index slide 81.2 early in the session and threaten to take a run at the 6,000 level, hitting 6,050.7 at its lowest point.
"The market has come back a long way and now looks good value," said Bob Semple, UK equity market strategist at Deutsche Bank.
While the 100 index finished the day in good heart and helped to drive the FTSE All-Share to a closing gain of 25.95 at 2,971.76, the junior FTSE indices continued to suffer. The FTSE 250 lost a further 47.7 to 6,404.7 and the FTSE SmallCap dipped 46.2 to 3,225.2.
The Techmark 100, also underpinned by Vodafone's stunning showing, closed up 14.55 at 3,416.14.
The latter index took the wooden spoon among the London indices, sliding 312.53, or 8.4 per cent over the week, followed by the SmallCap, which lost 160.5, or 4.7 per cent. The 250 index was down 264.7, or 4 per cent, the All-Share was down 94.25, or 3.1 per cent, and the FTSE 100 gave up 181.6, or 2.8 per cent. Turnover in equities was 1.8 billion.
