London equities markets were up on Friday but closed lower over the week, with the FTSE 100 adding 0.36 for the day but dropping 1.2 percent for the week to end at 5,879.3 and the FTSE 250 up 0.32 Friday but down by 1 percent on the week to 9.606.3.

Miners were down as investors worried that China will say on Monday that it has a large trade surplus, leading to a tightening of monetary policy there. Antofagasta fell 2 percent to 461p, wile Vedanta Resources declined by 3 percent to £13.21.

GCap Media dropped 4 percent to 200¾p when Merrill Lynch cut its earnings forecast for the company by 42 percent.

Among pharmaceuticals companies, AstraZeneca was 1.3 percent lower to £33 on a downgrade to “hold” from Citigroup on valuation concerns.

In the oil sector, Regal Petroleum added 7.2 percent to 119½p, while Xtract Energy was up 32 percent to 10.3p on a new discovery of a shale deposit in Australia that could yield up to 1.6 billion barrels of oil.

The biggest winner among blue-chips was Next. The fashion retailer gained 3.8 percent to £17.28 on bids rumors, even though analysts were skeptical of the talk.

Both the FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 were lower in London on Wednesday. The 100 dropped 0.7 percent to 5,860.0, while the 200 was 0.4 percent lower to 9.454.2.

Miners were mixed on the session. Anglo American fell 3.6 percent to £23.80 after its shares went ex-dividend, while BHP Billiton dropped 4 percent to £10.14 on a weak annual report. Xstrata, however, added 0.7 percent to £22.65 after it was said that it might not have to resort to a huge rights issue in order to fund its purchase of Canadian miner Falconbridge.

High raw materials costs were blamed for the 1.5 percent decline to 511p for drinks can manufacturer Rexam, which uses aluminium in its products. The retreat came ahead of an earnings report scheduled to be released later today.

In the retail sector, Debenhams was 1.8 percent lower to 179½p on rumors that clothing sales are down for the department stores group.

Bucking the general trend downward was Regal Petroleum. The oil exploration group added 5.6 percent to 118p on news that the company’s legal woes in the Ukraine might be on the way to being solved as well as on the possibility of good news from its current exploration project in Egypt.

The equities markets in London were down on Thursday, with the FTSE 100 losing 0.3 percent to 5,478.2 and the FTSE 250 declining by 0.1 percent to 7,925.1.

There were 3.1 billion shares traded on the day.

In its debut, online gaming company 888 Holdings started with a share price of 175p, gained to as much as 183¼p, and then slid to end the day down 3.7 percent to 168½p as investors took into account the fact that interest in online gaming might be slowing.

Another online gaming group, PartyGaming, was down 3.7 percent to 91¾p. But spread betting company IG Group was up 3 percent to 172p as it said recent trading volumes had been good.

Leisure company Hilton Group, the owner of Ladbrokes, was up 2.4 percent to 315p on recommendations from ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank.

Retailer Boots was down 3.3 percent to 608½p after reporting that second quarter revenues in its core chain were down 1.6 percent. DSG international, which owns Dixons, lost 2 percent to 150p. Regal Petroleum fell 31.8 percent ton the day to 88p on its interim results and as a result of the confirmation that there is a legal challenge being offered to its Ukranian oil licenses.