FTSE 100 index down 1.4%; U.S. nonfarm payroll data largely as expected
British stocks declined on Friday, after rallying strongly in the previous session, with oil producers trading lower.
The U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX: news , chart , profile ) slipped 1.4%, or 56.37 points, to 4,068.87.
Still, the FTSE 100 index is up 4.4% on the week, paring year-to-date losses to 8.2%.
Shares in London surged over 4,000 for the first time since February on Thursday, with the index ending with a 4.3% gain amid increased optimism that the global economy has begun to stabilize.
Data out Friday showed that, although activity in Britain's services sector continued to contract sharply in March, the pace slowed from February, according to the CIPS/Markit purchasing managers' index
U.S. nonfarm payrolls fell by 663,000 in March, close to expectations, while the unemployment rate jumped to 8.5%, also as expected. See full story.
Oil producers were lower on Friday, with BP shares down 2.5% and Royal Dutch Shell shares down 1.8% as light sweet crude-oil futures softened.
Drug makers also traded lower, with GlaxoSmithKline down 1.8% and AstraZeneca shares down 2.7%.
Still, shares of Royal Bank of Scotland rose 10.3%.
Royal Bank of Scotland's new chairman, Philip Hampton, on Friday attributed a large part of the bank's problems to its acquisition of ABN Amro as he also said more jobs cuts are inevitable in the U.K. Several mineral extractors were also performing well, with both Anglo American (UK:AAL: news , chart , profile ) and Vedanta Resources (UK:VED: news , chart , profile ) more than 2.5% higher in the top index.
Johnson Matthey upgraded
Johnson Matthey (UK:JMAT: news , chart , profile ) shares climbed 5.7% after Credit Suisse upgraded the firm to outperform from neutral.
"We [have] become more optimistic on Johnson Matthey based primarily on improving auto fundamentals, especially in Western Europe," the broker said.
British Airways (UK:BAY: news , chart , profile ) shares rose 9.7%. The airline said that it would cut more jobs and reported that traffic rose 0.9% in March year-on-year.
Shares in newspaper and magazine wholesaler Smiths News (UK:NWS: news , chart , profile ) jumped 6.1% after it secured a 136 million pound ($200 million) contract with the Telegraph Media Group, publisher of the Daily Telegraph newspaper.
