The London equities markets were up on the day Friday and on the week as a whole, largely on substantial gains in the properties sector. The FTSE 100 was up 0.7 percent on Friday and gained 0.6 percent for the week as a whole to close at 6,036.3, the second time this week that it closed above the 6,000 mark. The FTSE 250 was up 0.8 percent on the day and gained 0.9 percent on the week, closing at 9,929.9. Friday’s trading volume amounted to 3.8 billion shares.
Banks were up on the same changes to real estate investment rules that helped the properties sector. Royal Bank of Scotland was up 1 percent to £18.67, while Anglo Irish Bank gained 1.4 percent to €13.44.
Among insurers, Prudential was down 4.8 percent to 681p when Aviva withdrew its bid for the company. However, Aviva reserved the right to renew its offer if another bid for Prudential materialized. This, some analysts said, meant that Aviva was prepared to mount a hostile takeover push. Aviva was up 1.2 percent to 831½p.
In the telecommunications sector, mobile phone operator Vodafone was down 1.4 percent to 125½p in anticipation of a change in European Union regulations on international roaming charges. Elsewhere the sector, Telent was up 2.1 percent to 408½p and Spirent added 8.3 percent to 48¾p as news that Lucent and Alcatel might merge helped the sector as a whole.