Weekly review
London's FTSE 100 ended the week 18.13 points higher at 7,425.63
Equity view
Shares in Caesars Entertainment jumped in pre-market trading in the US, after it agreed to be acquired by rival casino operator Eldorado Resorts in a multi-billion dollar deal.
Boots is set to ban plastic carrier bags by 2020 and will replace them with brown paper bags.
Lloyds Banking Group has reportedly frozen 8,000 Jersey-based offshore bank accounts following a crackdown on money laundering, with the account holders having failed to prove their identities.
Carrefour has agreed to sell an 80% stake in its China business to Chinese retailer Suning.com for €620m.
Digital bank Monzo saw its valuation double to nearly £2bn at its second round of funding which saw it raise £113m in fresh equity from investors led by US-based investment outfit Y Combinator.
Chicago-based bio-pharmaceutical company Abbvie snapped up Botox-maker Allergan for roughly $63bn on Tuesday, mostly in cash.
The UK’s largest grocery chain Tesco is planning to introduce cashierless stores in the country in a move that would cut costs and make it the leader in self-checkout food retail.
Southern Water has been hit with record penalties and payments of £126m after water regulator Ofwat found that the company had been deliberately misreporting its sewage performance in order to hide "serious failures".
Petrofac shares surged on Wednesday following reports that the Serious Fraud Office has abandoned a criminal investigation into three businessmen who were accused of paying brides in the energy industry.
Private equity firm TDR Capital confirmed on Wednesday that it has made a £1.9bn offer for car auctioneer BCA Marketplace, as the WeBuyAnyCar.com owner posted a jump in full-year revenue and profit.
Stagecoach reported a drop in overall profits on Wednesday, following losses associated with the disposal of its North American business, and added that it will not bid for further UK rail franchises.
The council of Worthing granted Swedish furniture company Ikea permission to build 162 affordable flats in a joint-venture with construction firm Skanska.
Irish forecourt company Applegreen has agreed to buy a leasehold interest in certain forecourt retail assets of US-based Lehigh Gas Wholesale, CrossAmerica Partners and their affiliates in the states of Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Groupe PSA said on Thursday that the decision on whether Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant gets to build the new Astra model hinges on how smoothly Brexit goes.
Greene King reported that it had returned to market outperformance on Thursday, due to growth from its pub company and brewing and brands segments, although wet weather did hurt sales in the post year-end period.
Outsourcer Serco said that 2019 revenue is expected to be at the top end of its guidance range, thanks in part to strong order intake.
Mirriad Advertising's share price more than doubled on Friday after it signed a new two-year agreement with Tencent, one of the largest online video platforms in China by mobile daily active users.
Merlin Entertainments has agreed to be taken private by investors including Lego's founding family and buyout firm Blackstone for almost £6bn in cash.
Airtel Africa had a lackluster debut on the London stock exchange, with its shares hitting a low of 70 pence after earlier setting the price for its flotation at 80 pence per share.
Economic news
Retail sales in the UK fell at their fastest pace since March 2009 in the year to June, with bad weather partly to blame, according to the latest data from the Confederation of British Industry.
Market expectations of a no-deal Brexit are on the rise, the Governor of the Bank of England has warned MPs.
Mortgage lending eased slightly in May, data published by the UK’s high street banks showed on Wednesday.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May will press Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Osaka over the need to bring the attackers in the Salisbury poisoning to justice.
The UK's first-quarter economic growth was confirmed at 1. 8% on Friday compared to the same quarter of last year, according to the Office for National Statistics.
Consumer confidence in the UK dropped in June, according to the latest survey from GfK.
International events
US President Donald Trump said he would impose further sanctions on Iran as soon as Monday, although there may not be much left to target.
Billionaire investor and philantropist George Soros is leading a call from other billionaires and heiresses including Regan Pritzker and Abigail Disney to have the government introduce a "moderate" tax on wealth in order to address income inequality, climate change and public health issues.
Donald Trump has taken another swipe at the Federal Reserve, claiming that the Dow Jones Industrial Average could have been “thousands of points higher" if the central bank had not ‘blown it’.
Gold prices have hit their highest level in six years, with demand for the safe-haven asset strong as the imposition of US sanctions on Iran heightens geopolitical tensions.
America's campaign of “maximum pressure” on Tehran continued on Monday as President Donald Trump signed an executive order imposing new sanctions on Iranian officials, including the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
US President Donald Trump attacked the European Union for taking action against US tech companies such as Google and Facebook over antitrust issues.
Washington may not go ahead with another round of levies on Chinese exports while the two capitals are preparing to resume trade talks.
Cyber-criminals working for China's Ministry of State Security have broken into the networks of eight of the world's largest technology businesses in order to raid them for secret client information, according to a report from Reuters.
The United States and China have agreed to a trade truce ahead of a meeting between the leaders of the two nations at the G20 summit in Osaka this weekend, according to a joint report from Politico and the South China Morning Post on Thursday.
Americans grew more cautious in June, as concerns around the global trade situation weighed on sentiment, the results of one of the most closely-followed sentiment surveys showed.