Leading shares continued the Santa rally - just - in the last full trading day before Christmas.
Amid mixed news - weak UK growth data, better than expected US GDP figures, the expected failure of the second and penultimate Greek presidential vote - the FTSE 100 finished 21.44 points higher at 6598.18.
Wall Street however continued to surge ever higher, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average breaking the 18,000 barrier for the first time. By the time London closed the Dow was up around 80 points at 18,042.
Jasper Lawler, market analyst at CMC Markets UK, said:
UK stocks managed small gains on Tuesday but were held back somewhat by downward revisions to the past five quarters of economic growth. Third quarter growth remained unchanged from previous estimates but as a result of the revisions to prior quarters the annual rate dropped to 2.6%.
With just over a week left until the end of the year, the Dow finally breached 18,000 after a surprisingly big upwards revision to US third quarter growth raised confidence in the US economy’s ability to ride out higher interest rates.
With investors spurning defensive stocks, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies fell back, not helped by a Reuters report that Express Scripts, the largest manager of prescription drug plans for US companies, was taking a tougher stance on pricing. Shire slipped 131p to £45.33, AstraZeneca lost 86.5p to 4516.5p and Smith & Nephew fell 19p to £10.89.
Housebuilders also came under pressure, on concerns about possible UK rate rises next year. Persimmon slipped 21p to £15.72 and Barratt Development dipped 6.9p to 459p.
With Brent crude stablising at around $60 a barrel, Tullow Oil climbed 12.7p to 419.7p.
Elsewhere BG lost 6.6p to 879.5p despite agreeing the sale and leaseback of two LNG vessels for $460m.
Reckitt Benckiser recovered from early falls to end 10p higher at £52 as it completed the demerger of pharmacy business Indivior, which ended at 150p.
Among the mid-caps, hedge fund group Man edged up 0.7p to 158.1p after a positive note from Panmure Gordon:
Assuming that [flagship fund] AHL continues to benefit as it has in the second half of 2014 from the withdrawal of quantitative easing and deliver good investment returns in 2015, we have increased our profit estimate by 20% on the basis of higher performance fees. We are increasing our price target to 180p (from 145p) and remain buyers.
Lower down the market Thorntons shares melted 22% to 92p after the chocolate specialist warned on profits after lower than expected orders from major supermarkets.
Finally APR Energy, the temporary power supply business, has blown a fuse after it cut its forecasts after its key Libyan operations were suspended.
Its shares lost 51.25p or 20% to 200p as it said full year core earnings would be 500 to 600 basis points lower than its previous guidance.
