Any worries that London's newly-launched order-driven trading system would have to cope with another day of big falls were erased after Wall Street's strong performance on Monday.
And there was more good news for British equities from the Dow's opening yesterday afternoon: bumper third-quarter profits from International Business Machines, announced after hours on Monday, saw the computer group's share jump by more than 5 per cent.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed nearly 100 points, moving back above the 8,000 mark, not long after London closed.
The 74-point leap by the Dow on the tenth anniversary of its 22 per cent slide on Black Monday, provided a much needed breathing space for a London market that had to contend with a number of worrying developments.
Among these was a further slide in share prices on the Hong Kong market, which fell another 4.4 per cent for a two-day decline of 9 per cent.
That weakness caused plenty of problems for those stocks with close trading links with the former colony. Falls in HSBC, Standard Chartered and Cable & Wireless accounted for more than 12 FTSE 100 points.
And the continuing confusion over the British government's intentions towards European economic and monetary union brought renewed strength to sterling, which moved up another two pfennigs against the D-Mark at one point yesterday, helping the Bank of England's trade-weighted index to top the 102 level.
Currency factors were behind another dismal showing by many of the big engineering and exporting stocks, including TI. But overall it was a satisfying day for market participants; dealers were content to see the systems running smoothly and said they expected the day's performance to lead to much increased activity via the order book in coming weeks.
One broker said: "It was an altogether much calmer day in the market place. Everybody is becoming much more used to the new system and price mechanism."
The FTSE 100 index, severely mauled on Monday when it dropped 118 points at one stage, cruised ahead to close with a 14.9 gain at 5,225.9, despite the burden of the three big Hong Kong-related stocks.
At its best, not long after trading kicked off, Footsie had touched 5,257.5, up 46.5.
The FTSE 250 index nudged up 10.1 to 4,918.6, and the SmallCap put on 4.1 to 2,402.1, only around 4 points short of its all-time high.
Turnover picked up from the rather tentative levels seen on Monday, eventually reaching 730 million shares, of which around 60 per cent was in non-FTSE 100 stocks. Dealers, as ever, still managed to complain about the level of turnover.
Meanwhile, the strategy team at Goldman Sachs, the US investment bank, continues to recommend UK stocks. "We maintain our positive stance following comments in the weekend press regarding the UK and Emu," Goldman said.
