Official data due on Tuesday and expected to show Britain's recession at an end will dominate the attention of London stock market traders, along with further developments on the wider economy. London's benchmark FTSE 100 index ended the week on Friday at 5,302.99 points, a slide of 2.8 percent from a week earlier.
The FTSE had begun 2010 in strong fashion - last week hitting its highest level since September 2008, when the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers signalled the start of the global economic crisis. Britain's Office for National Statistics will on Tuesday publish data widely expected to reveal that Britain returned to growth in the fourth quarter.
"We are hopeful that these figures will officially record the emergence of the economy from recession," said Investec economist David Page. "We certainly forecast that to be the case, based on the ongoing improvement in the labour market and on a swathe of anecdotal evidence."
Economists are predicting growth of about 0.4 percent during the October-December period, after six quarters of negative output. World stock markets meanwhile slumped this week after US President Barack Obama's vow to crack down on "reckless" big banks and on jitters over an overheating Chinese economy and soaring European debt, analysts said. Investors grew increasingly nervous about global economic recovery also as the IMF and the United Nations this week each warned of a possible "double-dip recession" in 2010.
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