London trading ends in negative territory

The London market has ended the week in negative territory after a day of depressed trading.

The Footsie index of 100 leading stocks closed down 52.7 points at 5293.2, although a bright start in the US meant London recovered from heavier falls during the session.

At one stage, the Footsie was more than 100 points - or 2% - down after oil stocks dragged the market lower.

They were hit by non-Opec member Russia saying it would only cut by oil output by 50,000 barrels a day - far less than the Opec cartel had been seeking.

Opec has been hoping Russia would join it with a large cut in output in order to shore up the faltering oil price.

And although oil stocks started to climb back during the afternoon, it was not enough to see them close back in positive territory.

BP ended the session down 5½p at 530p, Shell was 4p lower at 493p and smaller rival Enterprise Oil slumped 3% or 13p to 451p.

In the US, traders were returning to Wall Street following yesterday's break for Thanksgiving, when markets were shut.

There had been fears among traders that the New York markets would reopen lower but instead the Dow Jones and tech-laden Nasdaq kicked off the day by moving up.

By close in London, the Dow Jones was around 80 points ahead.