The London market soared, despite a slump in annual earnings from oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and slashed UK growth forecasts from the Bank of England.
Shell said on an underlying basis its full-year earnings fell 53% to 10.7 billion US dollars (£7.3 billion), and it will cut 10,000 jobs as part of its 49 billion US dollar (£34 billion) takeover of gas explorer BG Group, approved by shareholders last month.
The FTSE 100 Index lifted 61.6 points to 5898.8, as the Anglo-Dutch oil major jumped by 6% on investors' twin hopes for the merger and that crude prices will rise later this year.
Germany's DAX was down 0.5%, while the Cac 40 in France was up by 0.5%. In New York the Dow Jones Industrial Average was slightly ahead in early trading.
Global stock markets have been turbulent since the start of the year, affected by growth fears in China and oil price rises and falls, and their implications for world trade.
Trustnet market analyst Tony Cross said: "This bounce has all the sturdiness and longevity of a paper mache ladder in a thunderstorm."
The pound was a cent down against the euro at 1.30, after the Bank of England slashed its UK growth outlook and kept interest rates on hold once more at 0.5%, as darkening gloom over the global economy pushed further back the prospect of a hike.
The Bank cut its forecast for growth in the UK economy for the next three years, to 2.2% in 2016, 2.4% in 2017 and 2.5% in 2018.
This is down from predictions of 2.5%, 2.7% and 2.6% respectively in its November report.
Sterling was slightly lower against the dollar at just under 1.46.
In stocks, Shell lifted 87.5p to 1525p, while rival BP was up almost 6%, or 18.5p, to 350.9p.
Drug giant AstraZeneca was one of the biggest fallers in the top flight after it posted a profits warning for this year with its blockbuster anti-cholesterol drug Crestor set to lose its exclusive patent in the US.
The Anglo-Swiss firm, which fought off a £69 billion takeover bid from US rival Pfizer in 2014, said sales will suffer "a single-digit percentage decline" this coming year.
It also announced that in 2015 the business made a core operating profit of 6.9 billion US dollars (£4.7 billion), down 1% compared to the year before, as a number of cheaper generic drugs entered the US market over the last 12 months.
Shares fell 6% or 269p to 4143p.
Mobile phone giant Vodafone notched up its sixth consecutive quarter of revenue growth, lifted by a strong performance in emerging markets.
The group saw organic service revenue - a closely watched measure of sales - rise 1.4% to £9.2 billion in the three months to the end of December, beating the 1.2% rise in the previous quarter.
Shares slipped 2.7p to 210.3p.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 Index were Anglo American up 54.6p at 328.3p, Glencore 13.7p at 99.7p, Antofagasta up 54.7p at 430.3p and BHP Billiton at 69.4p at 712.6p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 Index were AstraZeneca down 269p at 4143p, Coca-Cola HBC down 78p at 1322p, Imperial Tobacco down 130p at 3598.5p and Johnson Matthey down 64p at 2343p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here