A much better feel to bond markets and an early rally on Wall Street helped British stocks back on to the recovery track yesterday. Sentiment was also helped by a batch of generally positive company news items, as well as further expectations of more takeover action.

There were no hard bid stories in the leaders, but plenty of rumours. And there was concrete news in the FTSE 250 index, where Tarmac was forced into revealing it had received a takeover approach, following a steep rise in its share price. CRH was mentioned as a possible bidder.

At the finish, the FTSE 100 had moved decisively clear of the 6,000 level and narrowly failed to break through the 6,100 mark, closing 83.0 higher at 6,092.4.

Turnover by the 6 p.m. count was 928 million shares, well below recent levels and once again lifted by exceptionally heavy activity in Vodafone AirTouch which accounted for 73 million shares, almost 8 per cent of the market total.