AT last there appears to be a glimmer of hope on the horizon. Markets around the world soared on Tuesday as the presidential election finally looked like coming to a conclusion, with Bush the likely winner.

Also, Alan Greenspan, the US Federal Reserve chairman, said that the US economy had 'moderated appreciably' and signalled that interest rates could be on the way down.

This was enough to cause a surge in the US, which inevitably spilled over to the rest of the world. The Dow Jones added 3pc, while the Nasdaq composite, the US technology market, rocketed more than 10pc, its largest ever one-day gain. Could this be the turnaround that everyone has been waiting for?

Many senior analysts are still very sceptical and see it more as a temporary blip.The market has retreated over the last couple of days suggesting their fears were right. At the end of the day, nobody knows. If we could predict which way it was going to go, we'd all be millionaires.

On the FTSE 100 market, stocks have had an extremely volatile week. Tuesday saw a much needed rally with the usual technology favourites seeing massive rises. Bookham Technology, which has recently gone into melt-down, recovered over 10pc, and a further 20pc the following day. However it is still a long way off its recent highs.

ARM Holdings sealed a licensing deal with Motorola, one of its strongest rivals, which further boosted its shares. Also Baltimore and Logica showed strong recoveries. However, these strong rallies will probably not be enough to prevent the exit of Bookham and Baltimore out of the FTSE 100 in the next reshuffle. The technology stocks have since retreated through various bouts of profit taking and also fears that the rally will not be sustained.

Finally, Dixons, has at last found a buyer for its 80pc stake in Freeserve, the struggling internet provider. Wanadoo, the French internet service provider, spun off from France Telecom, has agreed to a £1.62 billion takeover.

This is on a share exchange offer basis of 0.225 of a new Wanadoo share for each Freeserve share held. The offer values the Freeserve shares at 157p, a small premium to its closing price prior to the temporary halt of the shares.

Shareholders were unimpressed with the deal. They will be left with a holding in a French listed company. The market was disappointed with the price Dixons is getting and fears the paper deal will leave Dixons exposed to the internet.