The main European stock markets rallied by more than 3% this evening, driven by financial stocks after US billionaire investor Warren Buffett offered to take on $800 billion worth of debt insured by troubled bond insurers.
Wall Street was also lifted by the offer, with the Dow Jones climbing 204 points to 12,445 and the Nasdaq up 24 at 2,344.
In London, the FTSE closed up 183 points (3.2%) at 5,890, with Barclays up 5.8% to 442p and HBOS climbing 5.4% to 658p. Paris closed up 3.4% at 4,841 and Frankfurt gained 3.2% to 6,965.
Dublin's ISEQ closed up 158 points (2.4%) to 6,648, with banks performing well in line with their European counterparts. AIB gained 31 cent to €14.30, while Irish Life & Permanent jumped 59 to €10.68. Ryanair added 14 to €3.74 after announcing a new base near Barcelona.
Earlier, Tokyo's Nikkei closed almost unchanged at 13,022.
