Wall Street opened down 175 points today, only to recover soon after. Only about 40 minutes into trading, the Dow Jones industrial average actually entered positive territory.
At its lowest point, soon after the bell rang at 1.30pm GMT, the US benchmark index slipped to 8204.20.
Boosted by New York, the London market has also made up almost all of its earlier losses.
By about 2.10pm, the FTSE 100 was down by just 15 points, compared with the 218-point decline recorded at the start of the day.
Whereas earlier there were moments when no companies were in positive territory, there were plenty of gainers by early afternoon.
The troubled bank HBOS is the day's top winner, up 13.5% at 68p.
Its merger partner, Lloyds TSB, also rose healthily, up 6.4% to 176.4p.
At that price, its offer values HBOS at 106.7p, still a hefty premium on current valuation.
Satellite group BSkyB has also been bouncing back after losing ground last week amid analysts' fears that customers might ditch their pay-TV subscriptions in a recession.
Sky was up nearly 7% today to 351.75p, back above where it was before last week.
