The London equities markets were down for the day on Friday and over the week as a whole, with the FTSE 100 dropping 1 percent during the day to 5,707.6, a decline of 3.1 percent during the week. The FTSE 250 was down even more, falling 1.1 percent to 9,076 during Friday’s session for a total loss of 3.8 percent this week.
After dropping as low as 690p during the week, Aviva closed 0.7 percent higher on Friday at 695p. The earlier losses came as investors were unhappy with the life assurer’s purchase of AmerUS for £1.6 billion. The worry was that it would be the beginning of a series of US acquisitions, although Aviva’s chief executive said that the present deal satisfied the company’s goals in the United States. Merrill Lynch upgraded Aviva to “buy”, saying that the deal was advantageous for the company.
The mining sector was lower as Rio Tinto dropped 3 percent to £27.25. Vedanta Resources saw declines as well, falling 0.2 percent to £13.33. JP Morgan raised Vedanta’s target share price from £18.25 to £19.65 based on its exposure to both copper and zinc as well as its growth.
British Airways was 2.4 percent lower to 346½p as oil prices continued to rise due to increasing political tensions in the Middle East. The same price hikes sent BP 0.3 percent higher to 643p.