An early surge in share prices in London's equity market ran out of steam yesterday, in a performance very similar to Tuesday's, except for a marked deterioration just before the close.

The FTSE 100 index finished a rather lacklustre session just off the day's low, closing 30.0 down at 6,074.1, having been down 30.8 at its worst.

The other FTSE indices managed to escape the downside pressures affecting the leaders, with the FTSE 250 closing up 4.2 at 5,546.0, compared with a day's high of 6.3 and an early dip when the index showed a 1.6 decline.

The FTSE SmallCap finished the day 0,2 ahead at 2,636.5; at its best, the index was up 4.1 at 2,640.4. Behind the erosion of the market's early confidence was a lingering worry that another interest rate rise might still be on the cards; the minutes of the March meeting of the Bank of England's monetary policy committee revealed that the members were still split down the middle over whether to increase rates.

More evidence of a mixed economic outlook came from the British Retail Consortium which said that sales had a sharp slowdown in March, although analysts pointed to technical reasons behind the fall.

Dealers in the London market were generally perplexed at the market's latest poor showing. "Wall Street is up getting on for 200 points over the past few sessions and London is prevaricating. Is it trying to tell us something? I think not. The weight of money argument has been the driving force behind this market and will continue to be so. Strong nerves are what is needed," said the head of trading at one leading European investment bank.

The investment management sector was strong with Schroders and Amvescap Footsie's top performers and Halifax, the bank, also being chased.

On the downside the pharmaceutical leaders, among the market's outperformers in the early part of the year, were under pressure all day.