Footsie stood firm against the rout seen elsewhere overnight as investors waited see what US markets would do today after yesterday’s rollercoaster.
The FTSE 100 Index climbed 21 points to 5,696 even though oil fell again to US$27.5 per barrel.
Decent updates from some household names and a better day all round for the miners helped the mood.
One time FT owner now education specialist got Pearson (LON:PSON) bounced 100p to 713p as it warned on profits but maintained its dividend and announced a £320mln shake-up that will see 4,000 jobs go.
Barclays (LON:BARC) is another stalwart wielding the axe with 1,000 jobs to go in Asia as operations from Australia to Malaysia and Singapore are shut down.
Like Pearson, the bank was rewarded with a share price rise albeit a more modest 1% to 184p.
Energy utility SSE (LON:SSE) also lost its spark by 12p to 1346p as the UK competition regulator delayed the publication of its long-awaited energy supply review from this month to the spring.
Meanwhile, signs that the market downturn was unlikely to end any time soon came in the form of a report from data firm Markit showing that current Footsie short interest stands at 1.75% - the most since the start of the market correction.
Royal Dutch Shell (LON:RDSB), which recovered 3p to 1280.5p following a profit warning on Wednesday, now has 5% of its shares shorted.
Car accessory and bike retailer Halfords (LON:HFD) motored 30.3p to 355p as it buoyed investors with news of higher Christmas sales and left annual profit forecasts unchanged.
Online retailer N Brown (LON:BWNG) jumped 14% to 319.5p as sales in the last 18 weeks climbed 4.1%.
The Simply Be and Jacamo brand group said online sales rose by 13% while Christmas had been good.
At the other end of the scale, investors lost their appetite for Premier Foods (LON:PFD) after the Kipling cake and Sharwood's curry sauce maker said an unexpectedly mild December and a decision to reduce promotional activity of Ambrosia held back grocery sales in the third quarter. Shares fell 2.5p to 36.75p.
Shares in Chemring (LON:CHEM) tumbled after the defence group unveiled lower annual profits and outlined plans for an £80.8mln fund-raising.
The stock fell 16.15p, or 9%, to 162p after underlying pre-tax profits in the year to October 31 dipped to £19.8mln from £28.1mln on a 6.4% drop in revenue to £377mln.
Elsewhere, Fox Marble (LON:FOX) softened 1.1p to 11.4p as the Balkans-focused quarry owner forecast 2015 sales of about €230,000 with most of the existing 2015 order book pushed into the first half of 2016.
Big Data software group Fusionex (LON:FXI) crashed 35% to 212p despite publishing results that were ahead of market forecasts and an upbeat management statement.
Surgical Innovations (LON:SUN) meanwhile gained 21% to 1.55p as sales were around £5.5mln for the year a 36% improvement on the preceding year.
Alliance Pharma (LON:APH) lost 0.5p to 48.5p despite predicting a rise of more than 10% in 2015 group revenue to £48.2mln, excluding joint venture sales.