The stock market had a rollercoaster ride, first plunging into the red but bouncing back to eventually close firmly in positive territory.

As the market opened this morning the FTSE 100 index went into instant freefall plunging 112.8 points in the opening few minutes.

The dive was prompted by falls on Wall Street and on Far East markets overnight.

The international situation was made worse by clutch of profit warnings, poor results from leading British companies and a CBI survey which showed a record fall in confidence among retailers.

But the tide turned late in the morning as Europe's central banks unveiled a co-ordinated cut in interest rates in preparation for the introduction of the single currency on January 1.

French and German stock markets were instantly buoyed by the news and hopes that the European rate cut would be followed by a cut in the UK next week pulled London up too. At the close the FTSE 100 stood at 5566.1 - up 58.9 points.

Great Universal Stores, which earlier this year acquired the Argos chain of catalogue stores, announced a fall in profits due to the costs of its acquisitions.

Combined with wider fears over high street sales, the news cut shares in the home shopping group by 25p to 549p.

Another FTSE 100 company with bad news to report was Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier, down 10.5p to 443p, which warned 1998 profits would be 6% lower than previously forecast.

Elsewhere in the FTSE 100 there was good news with Bass reporting an upturn in sales after the summer slowdown and profits at the high end of forecasts.

The market raised its glasses to the brewery and leisure group lifting its shares 17p to 830p.

But a profit warning on the full year emerged from condom and medical gloves maker London International Group led shares in the group down 57p to 130.5p.

The continuing boom in the video games market helped bring confidence to traders in technology group Videologic.

Although the company, which designs computer chips for video games machines, reported losses for the first half of the year, its involvement with Sega's latest console the Dreamcast cheered the market.

The prospect of a boom in sales helped Videologic shares put on 2p to 52.5p.

Defence engineering business GEC also impressed the market with higher sales and profits and with news that it had been in intense talks with other global defence industry companies for several months.

The group also announced a voluntary redundancy scheme at its Marconi Communications and Marconi Electronic Systems divisions aimed at shedding 1,500 staff.

The prospects of an alliance or merger in the near future and the company's determination to refocus on higher margin business sent shares up 54p to 505p.

Royal Bank of Scotland reported pre-tax profits breaking through the £1bn barrier which sent shares up 62p to 932p.

The major gainers on the day were GEC up 54p to 505p, Associated British Foods up 47p to 598p and Sema Group up 38p at 508p.

The big fallers were Tesco down 8p at 166p, Railtrack down 73p at £15.89 and GUS down 25p at 549p.