Britain awaits yet another cut in interest rates to record low levels.
But it may not be enough to boost the London stock market as recession weighs on the economy, traders said.
The FTSE 100 index of leading shares closed on Friday at 4,149.64 points, up 2.39 per cent or 97.17 points from a week earlier.
The Bank of England (BoE) is widely expected to slash British borrowing costs by a further 50 basis points to an official cash rate of just 1 per cent at a meeting on Thursday.
Now at 1.5 per cent, interest rates are at the lowest level since the British central bank was formed in 1694.
This week, a statement from Barclays bank stressing it did not need a government bailout following speculation to the contrary sent its share price and those of its peers rocketing.
Some of the gains last week were lost as the weekend approached due to "poor earnings and bleak labour and housing market data from the US, heightening fears of a deeper global recession", said City Index market strategist Nick Serff.
"This ended a four-day surge for the major indexes, their best performance in two months," he said.
Another notable British corporate announcement this week came from Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell, which said it had made a net loss of $US2.81 billion ($A4.3 billion) in the final quarter of 2008 on plunging oil prices.
The loss compared with a net profit of $US8.47 billion ($A13 billion) during the fourth quarter of 2007, when crude prices were far higher, Europe's largest oil company said.
