Investors on the London stock market will pore over Britain's latest official growth data and earnings updates from the banks in the coming days after a week dominated by the eurozone debt crisis. The FTSE 100 index of leading shares jumped 3.89 percent over the week to finish at 5,702.24 points on Friday.
The market soared on a wave of new-found investor confidence following a crucial EU debt crisis deal and in the wake of bumper profits from oil majors Royal Dutch Shell and BP. Next Tuesday, traders will digest the first official estimate of British gross domestic product (GDP) for the three months to September.
"Dominating the UK economic news over the coming week will be the first estimate of GDP in the third quarter," said economist Howard Archer at research consultancy IHS Global Insight in London.
"GDP growth is likely to have picked up modestly due to the making up of activity lost to special factors in the second quarter. However, the underlying performance of the economy is clearly poor."
Britain slowed to a virtual halt in the second quarter with GDP - the combined value of all services and goods produced - up just 0.1 percent compared with the first as the economy was hit by a series of one-off events.
Most workers in Britain did not work on April 29, the day of Prince William's marriage to Catherine Middleton. British manufacturing also suffered from a shortage of parts from earthquake-hit Japan.
Next week kicks off with a third-quarter trading update from Barclays bank on Monday, followed by Standard Chartered and state-rescued Royal Bank of Scotland on Wednesday and Friday, respectively.
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