Weekly Review
The FTSE 100 finished down 22.44 points on the week at 6,722.62.
Equity view
Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton said it would cut capital expenditure budget in the 2014-2015 financial year by $600m to $14.2bn.
Oilfield services group Petrofac has scaled back its profit assumptions for next year, saying that depressed oil prices and the timing of deliveries will result in a weaker bottom line.
BT said this week that it has been in talks with Telefonica about buying its UK mobile network O2.
Friends Life has suspended its £317m share buyback after the insurer last week agreed to a £5.6bn takeover by larger rival Aviva.
Like-for-like sales trends worsened in the third quarter at B&Q and Screwfix owner Kingfisher as decent growth in the UK and Ireland was offset by falling sales in its largest market, France.
Tesco shareholders have decided to take legal action against the food retailer after the troubled giant declared a £263m hole found in profits.
Glaxosmithkline is on track to complete its complex three-way £11bn deal with Swiss pharmaceutical peer Novartis next year after US regulators approved the first two parts of the transaction.
Insurance and investment services group Legal & General has won a £2.5bn bulk annuity contract with the UK pension scheme of US car-parts group TRW Automotive.
Smith & Nephew’s chief executive Olivier Bohuon this week told employees he has no intention of leaving the company following speculation that he was taking the helm of Sanofi.
UK supermarkets were slammed on Thursday after they failed without exception to meet the Foods Standards Agency’s targets regarding the presence of Campylobacter in raw poultry.
Diversified mining giant Rio Tinto has promised investors that "sustainable cash returns" will be delivered next year.
Economic news
Holiday spending by British shoppers will increase by 4% this year, according to a forecast by advisory firm Deloitte, helped by strong growth in digital sales. Consumers are expected to shell out £42.4bn in December, up £1.5bn on last year.
England's brownfield land has the space for at least 1m new homes, according to the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
UK house prices are expected to rise between 3% and 5% in 2015, according to Halifax. Britain’s biggest mortgage lender expects "a further moderation in house price growth" in 2015, in line with other forecasts, predicting price rises were easing off because of a decline in mortgage approvals.
Business optimism in the UK rebounded from an 18-month low in November, according to the Lloyds Business Barometer. The bank's optimism barometer, which measures UK companies' views on prospects for the economy, rose to 42 this month on the back of an easing of volatility across financial markets.
The average UK house price rose 0.3% to £189,388 in November, with the annualised growth rate falling to 8.5% from 9% in October, according to Nationwide.
International events
The IFO institute's business confidence index for Germany shot past forecasts in November. The business climate gauge rose to a reading of 104.7 from the 103.2 level seen in October.
Former Vietnam War veteran and US defense secretary Chuck Hagel on Monday stepped down, although it remains to be seen whether it marks a shift in US military strategy.
A survey showed that consumer confidence in the US unexpectedly tumbled in November. The Conference Board's monthly consumer-confidence index sank to 88.7 this month after jumping to a seven-year high of 94.1 in October.
Annualised US GDP growth for the third quarter was revised higher to 3.9%, up from the initial estimate of 3.5%, surprising analysts who had expected a downwards revision to 3.3%.
Industrial profits in China slumped 2,1% in October, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, as weak demand, rising costs of labour and falling product prices took their toll on companies' bottom lines. This was the worst annual decline registered in two years.
The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OEPC) this week held off from scaling back production, sticking to its current production ceiling of 30m bbl/day target. The decision saw oil prices drop as much as 7% on Thursday to their lowest levels in four and a half years.
Japanese inflation slowed for the third straight month to an annual rate of 2.9%, compared with 3.2% in September. When adjusting for the three percentage-point increase in the national sales tax back in April, CPI inflation plunged to 0.9%, the first sub-1% inflation rate in 14 months.
Eurozone inflation slowed further in November from 0.3% to 0.4% due to a continued drop in oil prices, raising the pressure on the European Central Bank to act in a bid to curb deflationary risks.
According to official data released on Friday, Greece’s struggling economy has finally returned to growth after six long years of recession. GDP rose 1.7% in the third quarter from a year earlier.