Britain's leading share index was flat in early deals on Wednesday, consolidating after reaching levels on Tuesday not seen since before the collapse of Lehman Brothers in mid-September 2008.
At 0851 GMT, the FTSE 100 index was up 3.73 points, or 0.1 percent at 5,441.34, with a rally by banks just countering a retreat from commodity issues.
"Investors are pausing for breath on the final session of 2009, contemplating what the new year will bring for equities, with economic uncertainties remaining and corporate recovery far from secure," said Mic Mills, a senior trader at ETX Capital.
The UK blue-chip index ended 35.20 points, or 0.7 percent, higher on Tuesday at a 15-month closing peak, notching a fifth straight session of gains as the year-end rally progressed.
Oils and miners were the biggest sectoral fallers on Wednesday, with the previous session's gains reversed as an advance by commodity prices stalled in the face of a firmer dollar.
Oil majors BG Group, BP and Royal Dutch Shell shed 0.2 to 1.0 percent as crude prices held below the $79 a barrel level.
Randgold Resources headed a weak mining sector as the gold price slipped back, with Rio Tinto, Xstrata, Anglo American and Kazaknmys off 0.2 to 0.7 percent as Tuesday's gains faded.
Banks, however, reversed Tuesday's weakness as a sector, led higher by heavyweight HSBC which recovered 0.5 percent of the previous session's falls, while Lloyds Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland and Barclays were flat to up 0.3 percent.
But Standard Chartered missed out on the rally, down 0.4 percent reflecting weakness by banks in Hong Kong on concerns over further Chinese government measures to temper asset bubbles.
Gains by defensively perceived issues also provided the underlying strength to keep the FTSE 100 index level, with heavyweight drugs, tobaccos and food retail issues all higher.
British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco gained 0.6 and 0.5 percent respectively; GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca were up 0.1 and 0.4 percent; and Tesco and Sainsbury added 0.3 and 0.2 percent.
The UK benchmark index has rallied about 57 percent since hitting a six-year trough in March and is up around 23 percent for the year, on track for its biggest yearly gain since 1997.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said on Wednesday, in excerpts from his New Year message, his priority for 2010, an election year, is to secure economic recovery while cutting Britain's gaping budget deficit in a "sensible and fair" way.
No important UK economic data are scheduled for release on Wednesday but, across the Atlantic, December Chicago PMI numbers should be of interest at 1445 GMT, with a reading of 55.0 expected, down from 56.1 in November.
Ahead of that, investors will also have an eye on the latest U.S. mortgage and refinancing indexes.
