Technology and insurance stocks helped European equity markets extend gains yesterday but Sweden's Ericsson missed out on the rally and French media giant Vivendi lost another 14 per cent.
There were no great surprises in either US weekly jobs data or US industrial production figures but, after the slew of recent worrying numbers on the US economy, Wall Street appeared to take that as reassuring news.
"The slowdown we've seen in industrial production is not surprising, as the indicator tends to lag the other weak data we've seen in recent weeks," said Mark Wall, an economist at Deutsche Bank.
"The key thing now is to see whether confidence holds up," he added, citing the Philadelphia Fed survey and the University of Michigan index due today.
However, with holidays in full swing and many European markets closed for Assumption Day, volumes were meagre and observers said the rally should be taken with a pinch of salt.
"Looking at fundamentals, I don't think there's much evidence to suggest we're about to see a prolonged upswing," said Hennig Kelch, European fund manager at Commerz Asset Managers in Frankfurt.
Markets in Italy, Spain, Austria, Portugal, Croatia, Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia are closed while France and Germany have public holidays, although their markets are open.
By 1342 GMT, the FTSE Eurotop 300 index of pan-European blue chips was up 3.05 per cent.
That more than made up for Wednesday's losses and lifted the benchmark back to the levels plumbed last September 21 in the wake of the World Trade Centre attacks.
The narrower DJ Euro Stoxx 50 index, which has given up nearly 30 per cent this year, added 3.42 per cent.
The Standard & Poor's 500 Index added 0.59 per cent in the first 15 minutes of New York trade while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite climbed 0.37 per cent.
Europe's big insurers vied for the title of the session's best blue chip performer - Dutch pairing Aegon and ING, Britain's Aviva and Prudential and France's Axa all added over six per cent apiece.
The sector, highly exposed to the ups and downs of global equity prices, has tended to act as a proxy for the wider market and traders said it was that - rather than any sector specific news - that was pushing prices higher.
Europe's tech titans pumped up the markets following the Nasdaq's 5.12 per cent jump on Wednesday and its early spike upwards yesterday.
Mobile phone colossus Nokia added 5.3 per cent, while Dutch electronics company Philips and French telecoms equipment maker Alcatel were not far behind.
The exception was Swedish telecoms equipment maker Ericsson which dropped 9.3 per cent as some investors chose to relinquish their rights to the company's forthcoming share issue, even though it is massively discounted.
"On a valuation level the rights issue might look attractive but I think there are fears that this won't be the last time Ericsson needs cash," Kelch said.
"Ultimately there's a fear that even a big name like Ericsson might end up in a bust situation."
Shares in Vivendi, which crashed 25 per cent on Wednesday in the wake of its disappointing results and big writedowns, tumbled through the 10-euro level to its lowest level since the company was reinvented as a media concern in the 1990s.
The stock, which has lost more than 80 per cent of its value since the start of the year, recovered somwewhat in the afternoon but was still 13.9 per cent lower.
Some analysts said Vivendi could run out of cash by the end of September if it failed to secure a fresh 2.0 billion euro credit line from its bankers.
The DJ Stoxx media index, on which Vivendi has a dwindling but still significant weighting, was among the worst performing sectoral indices, up just 1.07 per cent.
Dutch Numico, the world's biggest vitamin and food supplements maker, slumped 14.9 per cent after posting a much larger-than-expected 38.2 per cent fall in first-half cash earnings.
But there was better news elsewhere in the Dutch market. Shares in computer services firm Getronics, which have been kicked lower recently over bankruptcy fears, soared 17 per cent and publisher VNU, a big gainer on Wednesday following its surprise announcement of a first-half profit, added another 5.6 per cent after Goldman Sachs upgraded the stock to "market perform" from "market underperform".