While the London market's leading stocks mostly had a rare off day, suffering from flurries of profit-taking mostly induced by Wall Street, there was no stopping the medium-sized and smaller stocks.
A mixture of announced and rumoured take-over bids, plus a continuation of the "soft landing" economic argument, was behind the fresh surge in both the FTSE 250 and FTSE SmallCap indices, both of which substantially outpaced the FTSE 100 in terms of total returns during January.
The FTSE 250 made rapid progress for a seventh session, finishing 93.5 up at 5,215.3, while the SmallCap pushed ahead strongly for a sixth consecutive trading day, closing 15.2 firmer at 2,169.8.
As the market picked up the scent of more bid action, this time in the highly charged banking arena, the FTSE 100 ended a fraction up on the day and a long way above its session low. It settled 0.6 up at 6,013.0.
Early in the day, Footsie had threatened to slip back below the 5,900 level, as it came close to posting a three-figure loss.
But rumours sweeping the market during the last 30 minutes of trading suggested that a bid for Allied Irish Banks was imminent, with Lloyds TSB and Deutsche Bank the favourites to make a move for the Dublin-based bank.
Turnover in equities was 1.2 billion.
