London's top-share index finished the day with a 79 point gain at 5,990, putting an impressive spurt at the end of the day.
Sentiment was boosted by a rally on Wall Street, except by the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index, where the shock of a slow-down in the growth of sales of iPhones hit Apple and therefore the Nasdaq hard.
Over in Blighty, one of the UK's technology champions, Sage (LON:SGE), led the Footsie higher after an upbeat trading statement. The shares rose 7.5% as the accountancy software company said group organic revenue rose 6.6% in the first three months of its fiscal year.
In contrast, government-owned bank Royal Bank of Scotland (LON:RBS) had another day to forget, shedding 2% at 255.7p.
The lender said it had set aside another £2bn linked to the payment protection insurance (PPI) scandal and US sub-prime lending legal claims.
RBS has also made an extra provision of £500mln for PPI claims against its fourth quarter 2015 following measures by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).
Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL), up 10.1%, shone out among the small caps. Shares rose after the company said it had exceeded its production target for the fist half of its financial year.
blur Group (LON:BLUR), rose 27.3% as it revealed 2015 earnings are expected to be a bit ahead of market expectations. The online sourcing specialist doing particularly well in the Enterprise space.
Eurasia Mining (LON:EUA) was wanted, soaring 21.4% after a production update for its West Kytlim platinum project.
The company was delighted to confirm that production preparatory work has continued in recent months and the Company remains on progress for first Platinum production in 2016.
Sector peer Xtract Resources (LON:XTR) climbed 7.7% to 0.21p as it said it expects to restart processing at its Chepica mine in Chile on 1 February.
"Although we have lost a full month of production in terms of the sale of concentrate and therefore revenue, we continue to stockpile ore,” assured Jan Nelson, chief executive of Xtract