London's top index was lifted by its oil majors and mining giants on Friday as it shrugged off disappointing jobs figures out of the US.
The FTSE 100 had added 0.3% to its value by the end of the day, despite US non-farm payrolls significantly undershooting expectations.
It ended up 17.51 points to 7,095.55.
Figures out of Washington showed that 194,000 jobs were added last month, below the half a million that had been forecast by analysts.
"Overall however, given the above, markets seem to have taken it reasonably well, holding their ground and avoiding a major drop so far this afternoon," said IG analyst Chris Beauchamp.
The rising oil price, which hit a new three-year high on Friday, proved enough to help the FTSE out of any sluggishness.
The price of Brent crude had increased by around 1.6% to 83.23 US dollars per barrel as markets were preparing to close across Europe.
It put a spring in the step of BP and Shell shares, up 2.5% and 2.2% respectively.
"Some of the hesitation in markets is also down to the ongoing rise in oil, which, far from slowing, appears to be gathering pace now that Opec+ has opted to hold production steady for the time being," Mr Beauchamp said.
"The world economy, facing severe bottlenecks leading to inflation across a host of sectors, is ill-equipped for another turbo-charged oil price rise, and this could well stack up to be the big risk for the autumn."
In the US, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones were both trading fairly flat as markets closed in London. The FTSE's European cousins were in the red, with the Dax losing 0.3% and the Cac 40 dropping 0.6%.
Sterling was flat against the dollar, trading at 1.3632, and against the euro at 1.1782.
In London, Royal Mail announced early on Friday that it had bought Canadian logistics firm Rosenau Transport, which it will add to the company's 27 depots in the country.
The £211 million deal will see Royal Mail's subsidiary General Logistics Systems, which operates on the west coast of the US, link up with the operations north of the border.
Shares in Royal Mail closed down 0.7%.
Despite attempts to brand the summer as "exceptional" and an August where sales were 50% higher than they had been before the pandemic, Hollywood Bowl's shares failed to hit a strike.
The company closed up just 0.4%, despite gaining as much as 5.3% earlier in the day.
The biggest risers on the FTSE 100 were BP, up 8.75p to 353.55p, Shell A, up 36.2p to 1,708.6p, Shell B, up 34.8p to 1,714.6p, Standard Chartered, up 8.8p to 480.8p, and Rolls-Royce, up 2.48p to 143.7p.
The biggest fallers on the FTSE 100 were Aveva, down 117p to 3,478p, United Utilities, down 40p to 1,770.5p, Spirax-Sarco, down 235p to 14,500p, Smurfit Kappa, down 53p to 3,804p, and Rightmove, down 9p to 670.4p.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here