Rallies in some of the stocks battered recently by profit warnings in the US and Europe helped the FTSE 100 to finish the week in the black. But there were few dealers prepared to back the London market too far, after a week full of earnings confessions and the prospect of more to come in the near future.

It was significant, traders said, that the market's best showing came after Oracle, the US software giant, met market estimates of its fourth-quarter numbers. As one trader put it: "This is hardly the stuff of bull markets." There was praise, however, for London's resilience in the face of what turned out to be another difficult session on Wall Street. The market there posted a three-figure slide not long after the UK market closed, buffeted by more grim earnings news.

What worried many market operators, however, was that the latest dire warning came not from the TMTs (technology, media and telecom stocks) but from Merck, the pharmaceuticals group.

Adding to the concerns over Wall Street were more disappointing figures from a handful of tech stocks.

At the end of a week which saw the FTSE 100 index post losses on three out of the five sessions, the FTSE 100 managed a 24.3 gain at 5,665.7, reducing the decline on the week to 57.3, or 1 per cent.

While the FTSE 100 blipped higher, and the Techmark 100 reflected the rallies in some of the TMTs, edging up 6.25 to 1,807.78, it was a different picture in the rest of the market.

Apart from the merest gain during the first minute of trading, the FTSE 250 never looked likely to move ahead.

It eventually closed 18.3 lower at 6,340.5, while the FTSE SmallCap lost 8.3 to 3,012.4. The losses in the 250 came from a variety of sectors and stocks, including Stagecoach and Gallaher, the tobacco company which confirmed its purchase of a 41 per cent stake in Austria Tabac.

Dire profit warnings from Lavendon Group, the plant hire group and Group Chez Gerard, the restaurants company, provided the focal points in the SmallCaps.

Over the week the 250 index lost 44.7, or 0.7 per cent, and the SmallCap 60.39, or 1.9 per cent. But the worst performance among the indices came from the Techmark 100, which relinquished 47.67, or 2.5 per cent. Among the best of the FTSE 100 winners was Marconi which had a tough time of it earlier in the week.

Market optimists, something of a dwindling band these days, pinned their hopes on the prospects of another cut in US interest rates after next week's FOMC meeting, and an end-quarter rally. If Footsie closes below 5,633.7 next Friday it will have fallen for six quarters in a row.

That will equal the record set in 1973-4, according to Tony Jackson, UK strategist at ING Charterhouse Securities.

Equities turnover was 1.96 billion shares.