Blue-chips surge into the weekend Investors headed into the weekend in high spirits after London's blue-chips booked their biggest weekly gain this year. The FTSE 100 advanced 28.11 points to 5,819.14, rising for a fifth consecutive day. Over the week the benchmark index gained 3.8pc, putting on about £54bn, and reversed the 2.8pc drop from a week earlier. The FTSE 250 ended the day 27.19 higher at 11,888.93. Market sentiment was helped yesterday by positive noises over a deal on the next tranche of Greek aid, as well as encouraging results from a German business climate survey. However, the impact of Thanksgiving in the US meant that actual trading volumes in London remained low. Nevertheless, just 10 FTSE 100 companies fell. Among them was Whitbread, which saw its finances come under scrutiny from analysts at Exane BNP, who didn't like what they found. Matthias Desmarais and Pierre-Emmanuel Causse inspected the group's off-balance sheet leases, which amount to almost £2bn. They argued that if added to Whitbread's reported net debt and capital employed, they saw a "significantly less attractive picture both in terms of risk and of value creation." The analysts questioned the operating leverage at Whitbread's hotels and restaurants business, because margins have not increased, and added that the group "has clearly put more emphasis on leaseholds." The negative message helped push Whitbread shares down 5p to £23.55. Kingfisher put on 3.7 to 280.7p, helped by UBS, which re-iterated its "buy" stance ahead of the group's third-quarter trading update on Thursday. The broker expects pre-tax profits of £265m from the owner of B&Q, 3pc lower than 2011, but ahead of consensus estimates of about £255m. Thomas Cook continued a strong run and gained 1 to 24p, having risen 20pc over the week. The shares rose in the run-up to the company's full-year results on Wednesday, the first under the new chief executive and chief financial officer. Investec, which recommends investors "buy" the shares, was bullish and boosted its price target to 40p from 25p. The broker argued that "the business turnaround opportunity is tangible" and that they expect the new management "to deliver a meaningful and sustainable rebound in margin."