The British stock market focuses next week on a smattering of company results in holiday-shortened trade, and will also track the latest twist and turns in the eurozone crisis saga. London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of leading share prices finished at 5,776.60 points on Friday, down 1.30 percent from a week earlier.
The market will remain shut on Monday due to a public holiday, with traders returning to their desks on Tuesday, when Scottish-based oil and gas explorer Cairn Energy publishes its first-half results. Advertising titan WPP is to release its latest earnings on Thursday.
Investors were also expected to be on tenterhooks over the long-running debt and growth crisis that has plagued the eurozone.
EU president Herman Van Rompuy will travel to Madrid on Tuesday for talks with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.
The meeting comes as the EU emerges from a summer hiatus and steps up moves to tackle the crisis. Van Rompuy will follow-up his Madrid talks with trips to Berlin on September 4 to meet German Chancellor Angela Merkel and to Paris on September 5 for discussions with French President Francois Hollande.