Modest gains on Wall Street failed to spur London into action and the leading share index closed just a few points higher.

US shares were boosted by economic figures showing wholesale inventories jumped by 1.3% in July, ahead of estimates, and sales at distributors rose by 0.6%.

Among companies here, banks did well - Barclays excluded - on hopes that new banking rules announced this weekend will be favourable. Regulators are meeting this weekend to thrash out rules on banks' capital. Royal Bank of Scotland led the sector on hopes that the rules will be easier than feared. A broker note from UBS suggesting Lloyds has more money than it knows what to do with has also helped the mood.


With metals prices falling back, big mining companies such as Rio Tinto and Kazakhmys fell.

JD Wetherspoon lost fizz. The budget pub group took another swipe at government taxes on the pub industry as it revealed like for like sales grew by just 0.1% in the year ended 25 July, although profit was up over 7%. Total sales, up 4.3% to a record £996.3m, were helped by new pubs, but growth was down on last year's 5.2%. In the six weeks to 5 September, like-for-like sales have increased by 1.5% and total sales by 7.6%.

SThree, another faller today, joined the growing band of recruiters reporting growing markets, though the Benelux region has yet to move back into growth mode. Group gross profit was 15% higher on a constant currency basis than the third quarter of last year at £43.0m and up 13% on the preceding quarter.

Hochschild Mining shone after saying it has received an encouraging scoping study and an upgrade of reserves for the Inmaculada gold-silver project in southern Peru. This new resource estimate represents a 245% increase in gold ounces and 225% increase in silver ounces.

Morgan Sindall, the construction group, has snapped up most of the contracts and assets of the social housing division of beleaguered building group Connaught for £28m.

Russia-focused gold miner Petropavlovsk is to float its non-precious metals division on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Elsewhere in mining, shares in Herencia Resources soared after it reported higher copper and silver grades at its Paguanta Project in northern Chile.

FTSE 100 - Risers
ICAP (IAP) 454.50p +3.86%
Aviva (AV.) 409.30p +3.23%
TUI Travel (TT.) 229.00p +3.15%
3i Group (III) 279.00p +2.57%
Imperial Tobacco Group (IMT) 1,945.00p +2.05%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,634.00p +1.81%
Shire Plc (SHP) 1,499.00p +1.63%
Schroders (SDR) 1,423.00p +1.57%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 557.50p +1.55%
Cobham (COB) 231.10p +1.54%

FTSE 100 - Fallers
Tullow Oil (TLW) 1,234.00p -2.30%
Cairn Energy (CNE) 435.40p -2.14%
Eurasian Natural Resources (ENRC) 839.50p -1.70%
Cable & Wireless Worldwide (CW.) 70.60p -1.40%
Home Retail Group (HOME) 212.30p -1.35%
Barclays (BARC) 319.10p -1.31%
Rexam (REX) 305.00p -1.29%
G4S (GFS) 253.10p -1.25%
Petrofac Ltd. (PFC) 1,369.00p -1.23%
Pearson (PSON) 999.50p -1.04%

FTSE 250 - Risers
BTG (BGC) 227.90p +12.93%
Xchanging (XCH) 133.00p +6.40%
Computacenter (CCC) 307.20p +5.75%
Devro (DVO) 247.40p +4.87%
Lamprell (LAM) 320.00p +4.64%
Rightmove (RMV) 740.00p +4.59%
JD Sports Fashion (JD.) 800.00p +4.58%
Moneysupermarket.com (MONY) 81.90p +4.46%
Premier Farnell (PFL) 267.90p +4.20%
Salamander Energy (SMDR) 245.60p +4.07%

FTSE 250 - Fallers
Renishaw (RSW) 949.00p -5.48%
JD Wetherspoon (JDW) 422.50p -4.74%
RPS Group (RPS) 180.90p -2.64%
Enterprise Inns (ETI) 88.20p -2.54%
Hansteen Holdings (HSTN) 65.35p -2.46%
Game Group (GMG) 70.20p -2.36%
Punch Taverns (PUB) 84.00p -2.21%
Babcock International Group (BAB) 537.50p -1.92%
F&C Commercial Property Trust (FCPT) 89.70p -1.81%
Great Portland Estates (GPOR) 325.40p -1.78%

Related share prices
Barclays (BARC) share price
Aviva (AV.) share price
Legal & General Group (LGEN) share price
Lloyds Banking Group (LLOY) share price
Rio Tinto (RIO) share price
JD Wetherspoon (JDW) share price
Connaught (CNT) share price
ICAP (IAP) share price
Morgan Sindall Group (MGNS) share price
Petropavlovsk (POG) share price
Admiral Group (ADM) share price
Kazakhmys (KAZ) share price
SThree (STHR) share price
Hochschild Mining (HOC) share price