Hopes of a rescue effort is buoying sentiment in at least one corner of the equity market, with investors hoping that saviours will emerge for the hard-hit US bond insurers.

These monoline insurers, the biggest of which are MBIA and Ambac, are hanging on to their crucial triple-A credit ratings by a thread. Yet share prices for both Ambac and MBIA rose yesterday by more than 10 per cent each - significant gains for the second day running on rising expectations of a capital injection.