London equities rallied at the close to finish higher after spending much of the day in negative territory.
The FTSE 100 closed 42.5 points, or 0.7 per cent, higher at 5,879.8 after touching a low of 5,689.4 earlier in the session.
The move was fuelled by a reverse on Wall Street, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average up 0.8 per cent as the London market was closing.
Carphone Warehouse was the biggest gainer, up 8.1 per cent at 328½p, as takeover talk swirled. The name in the frame is Best Buy, the US retailer which has a stake in Carphone.
Standard Chartered rose 0.8 per cent to £16.65 despite announcing plans to bail out Whistlejacket, one of its structured investment vehicles exposed to the subprime lending crisis.
Friends Provident fell 10.6 per cent to 138.8p after it unveiled plans to sell its F&C and Lombard fund management units as part of the strategic review undertaken after its failed plans to merge with Resolution. It also said 2007 profits would be 41 per cent below the year before.
Royal Dutch Shell B shares closed flat at £17.44 after the oil group reported record annual earnings of $27.6bn, up from $25.4bn a year earlier.
Tullow Oil rose 4.7 per cent to 597p after it agreed to sell its 11 per cent interest in a Congo oil field to Korea National Oil for $435m.
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