An official estimate of British growth in the fourth quarter of last year and a clutch of trading updates from bluechip companies are on the agenda for London's stock market investors next week. The capital's FTSE 100 index of leading shares finished at 5,854.89 points on Friday, down 1.86 percent from the previous week.
The FTSE endured its worst week this year on global economic growth worries amid weak data out of China and the eurozone, which followed a strong first-quarter rally for world stock markets thanks to robust US jobs data.
London's main equities index was meanwhile unmoved by the British government's annual budget statement announced on Wednesday, after much of its content had already been leaked to media.
British finance minister George Osborne slightly upgraded the government's official 2012 economic growth forecast when he presented his third austerity budget in a row. Gross domestic product was expected to expand by 0.8 percent this year, which marked a slight upgrade from the previous GDP forecast of 0.7 percent that was given in November.
The latest official data, meanwhile, showed that Britain's economy shrank by 0.2 percent in the fourth quarter of last year compared with the third. On Wednesday, Britain reveals the final official estimate for fourth quarter growth, while most economists expect the country to have rebounded slightly in the first quarter of 2012. London's investors will next week also pore over trading updates from several British companies, including Tui Travel, caterer Compass and Imperial Tobacco.