The absence of any direction from Wall Street, which was closed for Martin Luther King day, proved no handicap for a London equity market still glowing with takeover and merger enthusiasm.
The two junior FTSE indices, the 250 and SmallCap, both posted intra-day and closing records, while the two most senior indices, the FTSE 100 and All-Share, made strong progress. Ironically, it was the latest mega-merger, that of Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, confirmed early yesterday, that proved the main handicap for the two main indices. Both stock prices relinquished early big gains as profit-takers moved in.
Excluding Glaxo/SmithKline, the biggest story in the market was the news that Vodafone AirTouch had overtaken BP Amoco as the British market's biggest company, measured by market capitalisation, after the former's scintillating performances over the past two trading sessions.
Vodafone AirTouch was the third-best individual performance in the FTSE 100 index, and by far the heaviest traded stock in the market, with turnover of 282 million shares, accounting for 13 per cent of the market total.
Meanwhile, the underlying tone in London's stock market remained extremely positive. Wall Street's strong performance on Friday, which saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average advance 140 points to another record and the Nasdaq Composite post its third consecutive three-figure rise, was another enticement for investors.
Although there was some mild disappointment at the absence of any fresh developments in the Marks & Spencer takeover story, the whole of the general retailing and food retailing arenas remained on red alert.
Knutsford, one of the market's favourites to unleash takeover action in those sectors, moved into acquisition mode, revealing it is holding takeover talks with Wassall, the conglomerate-turned-venture capital group.
Other hard bid news included an agreed £670 million sterling bid for Druid Group, an information technology consultancy, from FI, the fast-growing IT services group, news which ignited the rest of the high-tech areas of the stock market, as did news of Baltimore Technology's US acquisition.
At the finish, the FTSE 100 index was 11.3 firmer at 6,669.5, having reached a session best of 6,694.3, up 36.1, and a low point of 6,638.3, down 19.9.
Also burdened by the weakness of the pharmaceuticals merger twins, Glaxo Wellcome and SmithKline Beecham, the All-Share index was restricted to an 11.48 gain at 3,164.93.
But the FTSE 250 took pride of place, with the midcap index gaining 71.6 to 6,626.2.
High-tech and related stocks provided 19 of the 20 best performers allowing for the inclusion of Durlacher, the stockbroker specialising in high-tech related areas of the stock market.
Overall business in equities was 2.17 billion shares by the 6 p.m. count.
