European equities pressed ahead in afternoon trade, undeterred by the lack of progress in early Wall Street trading.
The most striking rise was Alstom, the French-based engineering group, which surged 12.9 per cent to €13.94.
Alstom has fallen sharply in recent weeks and looks a bargain to investment funds seeking a home for cash.
Its shares were upgraded by CAI Cheuvreux from "underperform" to "outperform".
Oil stocks staged a fight back as crude prices edged up from Thursday's 28-month lows. Royal Dutch put on 3.3 per cent to €53.65 and Eni gained 3.2 per cent to €13.11. TotalFinaElf, which lost more than 12 per cent over the previous two sessions, recouped 2.9 per cent to €142 ahead of results next week. The rally came in spite of a downgrade from Deutsche Banc Alex Brown in the US for many of the oil majors in the US and Europe on fears of falling oil prices.
Technology stocks continued edging higher. Nokia added another 0.6 per cent, making a rise for the week of almost 11 per cent. Analysts at Evli Bank cut their rating from "buy" to "accumulate", citing the stock's recent gains and Nokia's challenging handset sales goal for the fourth quarter.
The mid-cap Dutch stock BE Semiconductor, a chip equipment maker, jumped 15 per cent to €9.60 after saying it had sold its 30 per cent stake in Possehl Besi Electronics for €18.1 million.
BE fell to a low of €4.60 in September but is now back to its levels of April and May.
Comdirect, the German-based European online brokerage, rose 5 per cent to €11.09 after announcing that it was seeking buyers for its French and Italian arms.
But the French IT services group Atos Origin lost 7.4 per cent to €80.35 after its results on Thursday night. Atos downgraded its forecast for this year, saying it was now expecting sales to grow by 7-8 per cent instead of 10 per cent.
