Investors appear to be shrugging off disappointing US growth figures and concerns about Spain's financial position.
A rise in US quarterly GDP to annualised 2.2% looks pretty strong in relation to elsewhere in the globe, particularly Europe, but it fell short of the previous quarter's 2.5% and expectations of a similar figure this time round.
Earlier the news that Standard & Poor's had downgraded Spain was following by poor unemployment figures from the county.
Even so, ahead of the weekend, markets are taking some comfort from a reasonably successful Italian bond auction and positive results from Samsung and Amazon, and better than expected results from Ford, albeit the car giant reported a fall in quarterly profits.
So Wall Street has opened positively, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up around 30 points in early trading. The FTSE 100 is 32 points or 0.5% better while the German and French markets are both more than 1% better. Even Spain's Ibex is up 1.6%.
