It was a day of see-saw moves on Wall Street. Major US indexes reversed early losses to rise more than 3 percent by early afternoon, oil was up and European shares ended higher. Bush said he would continue "close consultations" with Europe at a meeting on Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"Our European partners are taking bold steps. They show the world that we're determined to overcome this challenge together. And they have the full support of the United States," Bush said in a speech at the US Chamber of Commerce. But he did not specifically mention calls by European leaders this week to reform the financial system that the world has been operating under since 1944 and White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said the US focus was on the immediate crisis.
"I think the most important thing we can do is make sure that we stop the bleeding here before we move on to the next project," she told reporters. Sarkozy and Barroso are expected to arrive at Camp David, the presidential retreat in Maryland, at about 4 pm (2000 GMT) and stay for about three hours, the White House said.
Writing in the Washington Post on Friday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said post-World War II financial institutions were out of date. "They have to be rebuilt for a wholly new era in which there is global, not national, competition and open, not closed, economies," he wrote. Bush's ability to act on such longer-term reforms is hamstrung by the fact that he will leave office in January, after an election less than three weeks away, on November 4.
BUFFETT BUYS: A Reuters/University of Michigan survey said US consumer confidence in October suffered its steepest monthly drop since the survey began in 1952. That followed a US government report that construction starts on new homes fell to their slowest pace since January 1991. The day after oil prices fell below $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months, the world's biggest oilfield services company, Schlumberger Ltd said weaker drilling activity in North America and some emerging markets would hit its operations into next year.
Oil jumped $4 to nearly $74 a barrel on Friday, spurred by expectations Opec could cut output at an emergency meeting next week and by broadly rising financial markets. Buffett, the world's richest man, wrote in the New York Times that he was buying US stocks for his personal account, saying the market was likely to move higher before sentiment or the economy changed. "So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over," he wrote.
Interbank lending rates for dollars, euros and the pound fell, suggesting central banks' efforts to provide liquidity were beginning to thaw frozen money markets. Overnight rates on US commercial paper fell to their lowest in nearly two weeks, Federal Reserve data showed. It was a welcome move in the credit market, which has struggled after the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers caused an upheaval in the US money market mutual fund industry.
RESCUE EFFORTS: Efforts to stabilise troubled economies continued. Ukraine said the International Monetary Fund was prepared to give it $14 billion in credit. In Russia, hit hard by the crisis and international wariness after Russia's brief war with former Soviet Georgia, Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin said investors had pulled $33 billion out of the country in August-September.
He said stocks would fall further. A source said another Russian bank could be nationalised, bringing the total to four. Hungary slashed its forecast for growth next year by almost two percentage points, after agreeing on a 5 billion-euro deal with the European Central Bank to keep euros flowing through its banking system.
In Asia, governments scrambled to find ways to shore up their banks and combat an economic slowdown. Reflecting growing alarm over the widening credit crisis, a panel of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party was considering ways to recapitalize big banks with government money, Kyodo news agency reported.
Japan's Nikkei index closed 2.78 percent higher. In South Korea, authorities pledged action to stabilise markets. Media reports said the steps, to be announced on Sunday, could include funding for banks struggling to find international banks willing to lend dollars.
Australia's prime minister held a summit with industry leaders, who said credit was drying up and smaller companies were collapsing despite assurances the economy was in good shape. Singapore and Malaysia both said they would guarantee all bank deposits until 2010, following similar moves world-wide.