After months of an economic slump, Europe's main stock markets have bounced back as economic growth in Germany and France boosted investors' sentiment.
Germany, the region's biggest economy, published on Friday its best quarterly GDP growth since 1990 of more than two per cent in the second quarter.
The country helped lift growth in the eurozone overall to one per cent and more than made up for the struggling economies of Greece, Spain and Ireland.
That rate of German expansion is unlikely to last, and early gains for European shares slipped back again, as did the euro's rise against the dollar. But traders, it seems are happy.
Al Jazeera's Rory Challands reports.
