Technology stocks mounted a comeback yesterday after the severe battering they suffered earlier this week at the hands of nervous Wall Street traders.
With the obvious exception of Psion, which saw its shares sink 165p to 410p after a surprise profits warning, the sector looked to be in generally good health.
Bookham Technology ended a dire week on a positive note with a gain of 141p to £22.91, helped by better than expected results from JDS Uniphase, the Canadian fibre optics supplier.
Also reversing the previous day's losses were a clutch of IT companies, with Logica up 109p at £19.75, Misys climbing 41p to 750p and Sema crawling up 6p at 916p.
The moves provided a tonic for the Techmark index which rose 55.77 points to 3,411.55.
However, traders warned that the past week's upheavals, principally sparked by the disappointing statement from Nortel Networks, meant the market was likely to remain sensitive.
Last night it was the telecoms stocks which stood squarely behind a bolstered FTSE 100 and forced the lead index up 64.2 points to 6,366.5 by the close.
Vodafone was up almost 5%, rising 13p, to 283p, and added 35 points to the FTSE's haul, while Colt Telecom put on 109p at £22.20, Energis enjoyed a 38p climb to 543p and Cable & Wireless closed the day at 980p, a rise of 9.8%.
BT also weighed in with a 45.5p rise to 783p, despite the announced price controls imposed by Oftel, the industry regulator.
Analysts at Investec Henderson Crosthwaite rated BT shares as "buy" for the first time in 10 months and said it was likely to undertake a radical series of disposals, demergers and flotations to reduce its debt.
Staying with telecoms, Kingston Communications enjoyed a 20p rise to 320p on the back of restructuring plans. The Hull-based company plans to divide itself into retail and network divisions to cut costs.
Pharmaceuticals saw some impressive rises with Cambridge Antibody up 162.5p at £40 and the Celltech Group putting on 17p at £13.97. Glaxo Wellcome, however, dropped 18p to £20.26 and Smithkline Beecham , which reports first-half results next week, slid 14.5p to close at 917p.
Dealers said the FTSE 100 volume of 1.2bn shares was down on the week's average of 1.5bn and this was attributed largely to people being away for the school half-term break.
Oil stocks lost ground after Opec warned its price stabilising mechanism, which keeps costs within a range of $22 to $28, would soon kick in.
The announcement, by Ali Rodriguez, president of the oil cartel, of a potential output increase on Monday caused BP Amoco to decline 17p to 588p and Shell to close 7p lower on the day at 557p.
Elsewhere, Linx Printing Technologies put on 20p to 355p after announcing its sales and profits were ahead of expectations in the first three months of the year.
Geo Interactive Media was buoyed by market whispers of a possible deal with Ericsson to develop a mobile phone project aimed at youngsters. The shares went up 5% to 965p at one stage before slipping back to 950p - a gain of 35p.
It was a good start for Lighthouse Group, the independent financial adviser which made its debut on the Alternative Investment Market. By close of play its shares stood at 180p, up from the 160p issue price.
But Quicks Group, the vehicle retailer, had a torrid time after warning its full-year results would be "significantly below the board's previous expectations". Its shares sank 11p to 55.5p as a result, some way off the 78p year's high, although comfortably ahead of the 30p low.
Other indices also climbed with the FTSE Midcap 250 up 19 points at 6,568.7 despite being a victim of Psion's plunge, while the FT Small Caps rose 15.2 points to 3,269.2.
