Britain's FTSE hits nine-month highs, nearing 6,000

* FTSE 100 index up 0.4 pct at 9-month closing high * Traders eye 6,000 by year-end, charts offer hurdles * Banks relieved by UBS fine, cheered by CS upgrade By Toni Vorobyova LONDON, Dec 19 (Reuters) - Britain's blue-chip share indexscaled fresh nine-month highs on Wednesday on growingexpectations of a U.S. budget deal, and nearing tough technicalresistance levels en-route to the psychologically key 6,000mark. Although the U.S. political ping-pong continued, the mainparties looked to be closing in on an agreement to avoid the'fiscal cliff' of tax hikes and spending cuts that threaten todepress the world's biggest economy next year. A deal would potentially pave the way for a year-end stockrally as investors seek a last-minute boost to their annualreturns, which traders said could see Britain's FTSE 100 reach6,000 points for the first time since July 2011. Such flows havehelped the index gain for the past nine Decembers in a row. "I don't see anybody looking to sell the market," said MaxBascombe, institutional sales trader at Merchant Securities. "The market will move on the basis of the balance ofsentiment but ... one way or another something will be muddledthrough. The (United) States isn't going to go to the wall. Ifthey don't come to agreement, everybody loses." The UK benchmark gained 25.69 points, or 0.4 percent, tofinish at 5,961.59. However, it failed to hold on to thenine-month intra-day high of 5,977.82 points and technicalanalysts said the path to 6,000 will be feature tough hurdles. The March closing level of 5,965.58 points and that month'sintra-day peak of 5,989.07 points will be key. "Fifty-two week highs are often not easy to overcome, weprobably need a few goes," said Bill McNamara, technical analystat Charles Stanley. "It is entirely possible that the FTSE will go through 6,000by the year-end. And if a deal (on the fiscal cliff) is done,even if it's not great deal, then we could even get to 6,100." Banks were the biggest gainers, up 1.8 percent,on some relief following an as-expected fine for Swiss peer UBS over rigging of Libor interbank rates - a scandalwhich has also embroiled most of the big UK names. Banks also got a boost from a sector upgrade by CreditSuisse, which lifted European banks to 'benchmark' from'underweight', with a preference for UK names. "The UK looks particularly appealing because we see somesigns of relative resilience in UK GDP growth and, above all,there is better coordination between the central bank and theTreasury than in any other country," Credit Suisse said in itsGlobal Equity Strategy 2013 outlook. "Our focus would be on Lloyds: we are fundamentally bullishon retail banks and there are clear signs that household lendingintentions and house prices are stabilising." Lloyds added 4.3 percent in solid volume. On the downside Bunzl, supplier of carrier bags andtoilet rolls, led the losers. Its shares dropped 4.3 percentafter an update on its 2012 revenue outlook pointed to arelatively soft performance in the final months. (Editing by Catherine Evans)