Britain's leading shares rose this morning in reaction to a rally on Wall Street overnight amid relief most US corporations met a deadline to certify their results.
By 7.42 a.m. the FTSE 100 index was up 103.1 points at 4,273.8, recouping all of yesterday's 101-point loss.
Strength in the beaten-down banking sector contributed about a quarter of the FTSE's gain, with Lloyds TSB clawing back around half of Wednesday's loss and HSBC gaining 2.9 per cent.
Oils added a further 16 points to the leading index as BP and Shell each put on 2.5 per cent.
But shares in P&O were left out of the rally as its shares slumped 10 percent on disappointment that its Anglo-Dutch container shipping venture, P&O Nedlloyd, was expected to report annual results below market forecasts.
US stocks rose sharply yesterday as yields on 10-year Treasuries tumbled to their lowest level in almost four decades on expectations of lower official interest rates in the future after the Federal Reserve shifted its monetary policy to an easing bias on Tuesday.
Dealers said the fall in bond yields was triggering a switch out of the asset class into equities since bonds no longer offered attractive value.