European shares have rallied after Asian stocks rebounded from Wednesday's sell-off in the immediate aftermath of Donald Trump's US election victory.
Hopes that Mr Trump will introduce a pro-business agenda to stimulate US economic growth helped to blunt concerns about his surprise win.
The main stock markets in London, Frankfurt and Paris hovered about 1% higher for most of morning trading.
Earlier, there were big jumps in Asia, where Japan's Nikkei 225 soared 6.7%.
In the US, the futures index suggested that Wall Street would open later almost 1% up.
"Perception now is that the controversial multi-billionaire TV presenter and property mogul could be good for business; and talk of tax cuts and heavy spending on infrastructure would certainly be good for growth," said Lee Wild, head of equity strategy at stockbroker Interactive Investor.
CMC Markets strategist Michael McCarthy said it appeared a consensus was building that much of Mr Trump's rhetoric during the campaign "was a sales pitch rather than a commitment to act".
In London, the FTSE 100 index, which closed 1% up on Wednesday, was trading about 0.8% up just after midday on Thursday. Germany's Dax and France's Cac indexes were slightly more than 1% ahead.
In Asia, following gains on Wall Street, the Nikkei's 6.7% rise saw it more than recover losses from the previous session. Hong Kong's Hang Seng added 1.9%.
On the currency markets, sterling rose 0.39% against the dollar to $1.2455, and was slightly up against the euro at €1.1368.
Traders had expected Hillary Clinton to beat Mr Trump to become the next US president. His victory initially sent money flowing into stocks that were deemed to be safer, as well as traditional haven assets such as gold and currencies including the yen.
"Investors were risk averse yesterday, then after seeing that Americans were optimistic and chasing the market higher, they wasted no time reversing their positions," said Takuya Takahashi, a strategist at Daiwa Securities in Tokyo.
"Some of the investors must be thinking that they shouldn't have sold after all."
'Campaign bluster'
Kathleen Brooks, an analyst at City Index, suggested Mr Trump's acceptance speech, in which he called for the country to unite, had helped to settle some of the market jitters.
And Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit said that "after the initial shock, investors seem to feel that a Trump administration could be good news for US businesses, with lower taxes and a reduced regulatory burden".
He added that while Mr Trump had set out several broad economic policies, including corporate tax breaks and the renegotiating or scrapping of trade deals, there was no certainty these would go ahead.
"As in the past, it is unclear how much of the campaign bluster will translate into actual policy initiatives."