It needed more than just a whiff of takeover speculation to excite a rather weary London stock market yesterday. Around midday, the market made a dash for the 6,400 level on the FTSE 100, with the insurance sectors seen as increasingly likely to provide the next big bid target.

And London certainly needed the shot in the arm that the consolidation stories provided. They mainly concerned Legal & General, long viewed as a potential target for an overseas insurer, but also helped drive Royal & Sun Alliance shares sharply higher.

A stodgy opening by Wall Street, and some second thoughts about the likely success of a hostile bid for one of the British insurance companies, saw the front-line stocks run back to finish the day with small overall losses.

Before the bid rumours began to intensify, the market had trod water as the excitement created earlier in the week over the latest meeting of the US Federal Reserve's open market committee continued to die down.

And even the expiry of the May series of the FTSE 100 index options, failed to produce much interest.