Tonight:
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Investors on the London stock market applied the brake to recent losses today after the world's biggest economy confirmed it had emerged from recession.
The third-quarter US GDP produced an annualised rise of 3.5% - the first growth since the second quarter of last year - helped by the cash-for-clunkers scheme and hundreds of billions of dollars of quantitative easing.
The news paved the way for opening gains on Wall Street this afternoon where analysts will be looking for a further boost from the weekly jobless numbers.
It also paved the way for prices in London to reverse opening falls. The FTSE 100 rose 43.62 to 5124.04, having touched a low for the day of 5042.66.
But it wasn't all good news. Earlier in the day, investors had slipped on an oil spill in the shape of third-quarter numbers from Royal Dutch Shell.
If they thought Shell was likely to match the phenomenal performance of rival BP earlier this week, they were quickly disabused.
Shell reported profits of $3 billion (£1.8 billion) for July, August and September, a collapse of 72% on the third quarter of last year. The company blamed falling oil and gas prices and refining margins.
The news undermined sentiment and left the oil giant nursing a loss of 77p at 1791½p, making it the biggest faller among the top 100 companies.
Richard Hunter at Hargreaves Lansdown said: "In comparative terms, Shell was always going to have a mountain to climb after BP's stellar performance earlier in the week. Unfortunately these numbers leave it some way short of the summit."
He warned that today's results could force some investors to switch into BP. The credit rating agency Standard & Poors responded by cutting its rating on Shell from buy to hold.
Charles Stanley has reacted to the drop in profits from the oil giant by repeating its hold rating. BP, which wowed the market with a 60% surge in profits earlier this week, ran into profit taking losing 2½p at 582p. BG Group, which failed to impress with its results yesterday, lost a further 26½p at 1068½p.
Lloyds Banking Group was one of the best blue-chip performers as it set about recouping some of the losses of the past week.
The shares rose 4.7p to 84.7p after the bank confirmed the Government had given the bank the go-ahead to start testing the market for its proposed £25 billion refinancing package.
Dealers say this is likely to be made up of a straightforward rights issue raising between £11 billion and £15 billion while the balance will use existing debt, convertible into ordinary shares. This will be Lloyds second rights issue in less than five months.
The other banks were also ticking higher this morning after the sell-off of the past few days.
Royal Bank of Scotland, which is also being tipped to go cap-in-hand to shareholders, rallied 3.9p to 43.5p. Barclays rallied 9.9p to 328.9p but that remains almost 40p below the level at which the Qatari sovereign wealth fund sold off some of its holding last week. HSBC advanced 6p to 677¼p and Standard Chartered climbed 24p to 1506½p.
The international banking group says it is being buoyed by growth across all of its divisions although the economic outlook remained fragile.
The miners rallied from a weak start taking heart from further weakness in the dollar which is expected to benefit commodity prices because buyers will get more for their money's worth.
The mining sector has lost 10% of its value in the past five days which made it a prime target for bargain hunters.
Kazakhmys rose 59p to 1173p after results, Mexican mining outfit Frensillo added 35½p at 788½p, and Anglo American put on 82p at 2260p. Deutsche Bank has jacked-up its price target from 2520p to 2550p.
AIM-listed gold explorer Norseman Gold has approved the start of the OK Decline, the third mine at its Norseman Gold Project.
The initial two-year mine life is based on an initial OK Decline reserve of 57,000 ounces of gold, while the potential to extend mine life is provided from the opportunity to further convert resource to reserve from the upgraded OK Decline resource of 200,000 ounces of gold.
The UK's largest life assurer Prudential rallied from recent weakness with a rise of 24½p at 575p. The shares have fallen back from the 640p level during the past couple of weeks.
CSR was the best performer among second liners adding 49½p at 451½p after a third quarter trading update.
