Investors 'more confident' in FTSE

INVESTOR confidence rose for a fifth consecutive month in January, hitting its highest point since last April, latest figures show. The influential monthly index run by fund manager JP Morgan Fleming Asset Management leapt to 83 from 67 the month before.

The index is based on a poll of 500 small investors and where they see the UK stock market in six months. The number who thought the FTSE All-Share would be higher rose from 30% to 39%.

Confidence hit a 12-month peak in April 2001, with the index at 103, before hitting a low of 43 in August.

Peter Brewster, head of marketing research, said: 'The increasing numbers of optimists around now feel that the market has bottomed out and shares will start to recover during the course of 2002.'