A verdict of no change on domestic interest rates from the Bank of England's monetary policy committee and the same decision from the European Central Bank made it three pieces of good news in a row for global markets yesterday.

The US Federal Reserve's open market committee began the sequence - as far as the markets were concerned - on Tuesday when it decided to leave US interest rates alone, albeit with a tightening bias.

London celebrated the news with gusto. The FTSE 100 index left 6,000 well behind and moved effortlessly past 6,100 and clambering above 6,200 before settling with a net gain of 102.9, or 1.7 per cent, at 6,200.4. The big gains spread right across the market, with the FTSE 250 finally up 51.5 at 5,771.1 and the FTSE SmallCap 8.9 up at 2,688.7.

Market-makers were generally surprised that all three of the monetary policy decisions proved to be neutral. Turnover was a healthy 1.2 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count.