Leading shares had their best day for nearly three weeks as insurers recovered from earlier falls and miners moved higher.
The FTSE 100 closed up 202.3 points - a 3.54% gain - at 5910.0, its best peformance since January 24.
And the real thanks for this should go to Warren Buffett. The US investor's plan to supposedly bail out the troubled US monoline insurers sent US and UK shares soaring.
Of course, he appears to be interested only in the stable municipal bonds insured by the monolines, leaving them with all sorts of potentially toxic loans. But the market has swept these concerns aside completely.
UK insurers, which had fallen sharply in the wake of yesterday's problems at American rival AIG, suddenly found themselves back in demand. So Old Mutual closed 6.9p higher at 123.4p, having touched 111.5, while Standard Life was up 10.25p to 208.25p.
As for the miners, Lonmin was lifted 194p to £33 as the platinum price continued to hit new records, while Rio Tinto rose 283p to £55.23 and predator BHP Billiton ended 72p better at £15.55.
It was a good day for Michael Spencer, the chief executive of interdealer broker ICAP. Market volatility is good for the company and its shares were the biggest riser in the FTSE 100, up 47p to 703p. Spencer also bought 3.4 million shares in mobile phone gambling group Probability at 50p each through his IPGL vehicle. Probability closed 0.5p higher at 59.5p, giving Spencer an early profit.
