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Investors will have to navigate a week full of potential risks events over the next seven days, not the least the U.S. central bank's policy meeting on Wednesday and the April U.S. non-farm payrolls report two days later.

Shares in Southwest Airlines plummeted on Thursday after the carrier announced plans to pull out of four airports to improve its financial performance, as it reported a wider-than-expected loss for the first quarter and trimmed its annual guidance.

US stocks fell sharply on Thursday after data confirmed the stickiness of inflation in the first quarter despite a drop in economic growth which pushed bond yields to their highest in six months.

Microsoft beat Wall Street estimates for its third-quarter revenue last night, driven by gains from artificial intelligence adoption across its cloud services and business software products. The company said its revenues had risen to $61.9 billion, up by 17 per cent and exceeding the $60.8 billion, or 15 per cent rise, that had been forecast. Its net income was $21.9 billion, up by 20% from the year before. - The Times

UK stocks are expected hit more record highs on Friday as investors continued to digest another round of corporate earnings ahead of some crucial economic data from the US later on.

Anglo American on Friday rejected an "opportunistic" £31bn bid from rival miner BHP, saying it significantly undervalued the company.

Darktrace announced on Friday that the newly-formed Thomas Bravo entity, Luke Bidco, had agreed to acquire it in an all-cash deal.

London's equity markets closed positively on Friday, buoyed by gains in the banking sector following better-than-expected results from NatWest.

Shore Capital reiterated its 'buy' rating on bank NatWest after a forecast-beating first quarter but said it sees the least amount of upside potential in the stock compared with the wider banking sector.

The UK competition watchdog has stepped up its scrutiny of big tech involvement in artificial intelligence startups, asking for comment on three deals by Microsoft and Amazon. The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that it was examining Microsoft’s investment in the French firm Mistral and the hiring of the DeepMind co-founder Mustafa Suleyman as head of the US company’s new AI division. The watchdog is also scrutinising Amazon’s $4bn (£3.2bn) i...