The S&P 500 closed 1% higher at 1,579, having earlier erased almost all those gains after hackers gained control of the Associated Press Twitter account.

Investors were briefly panicked by two erroneous tweets which reported President Obama had been injured, but soon recovered their confidence after realising there was no truth to the rumours.

Apple was among the high profile US risers, shares rising 1.9% after it attempted to offset its first profit fall for a decade by announcing it would return an extra $55bn to shareholders over the next three years.

After seeing a similar sell-off to the S&P, the Dow Jones eventually closed the day up 1.1% at 14,719, with the rally continuing in Asia this morning.

Japan’s Nikkei soared 2.3% to close at 13,843, a fresh five-year high, while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index rose 1.6% to 22,154 in late trading.

Those moves came after a strong day for UK equities, with the FTSE rising 2% – its biggest one-day rise since January – to close back above 6,400 at 6,406.