London investors, cheered by an interest rate cut in the run-up to Christmas, will hunt for subprime news next week in a trading statement from British bank HBOS. The FTSE 100 index of leading shares finished Friday at 6,554.90 points, up 1.90 percent or 122.4 points, from a week earlier.
Shares were boosted this week after the Bank of England cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point to 5.50 percent in the first reduction for more than two years.
The BoE trimmed rates in a bid to combat a cooling housing market, slower economic growth amid the ongoing global credit squeeze and the US subprime housing crisis, analysts said.
Next Thursday, all eyes will be on a trading update from HBOS, which is the fourth-biggest bank in Britain. In recent weeks, both the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and Barclays have warned of significant losses resulting from their exposure to the US subprime home loan crisis and the subsequent credit squeeze.