There's another feast of company results Friday, though nothing to match "Super Thursday", but events on the other side of the pond will probably determine how London goes into the long weekend.

Full year results from Guinness brewer Diageo should see the company announcing an increase in profit and a continuation of the improving trend seen in the group's third quarter.

BHP Billiton brings out full-year figures on Wednesday that are likely to be overshadowed by the company's £26bn pursuit of fertiliser company Potash.

Scottish oil company Cairn Energy releases half-yearly results little more than a week after it agreed to sell off a controlling stake in Cairn India to Vedanta for $8.5bn.

On what's looking like an extremely quiet day on the company announcements front, engineering company Goodwin's full year results will give traders something to ponder.

Indian energy company Essar Energy, which floated in May and entered the list of FTSE 100 index constituents at the first time of asking, is scheduled to announce its first set of results on Thursday covering the first half of 2010.

Fund manager Gartmore Group has been listed on the stock exchange for less than a year but it has been an eventful period, nevertheless, with the share price languishing a pound below its flotation price of 220p, largely due to the cooud hanging over its former star manager Guillaume Rambourg.

The deluge of second quarter company results slowed to a trickle this week, and as usual for a Friday, the last day of this week will be a quiet one.

Insurer Prudential will take centre stage on Thursday, having been mercifully out of the spotlight for much of the six month period since the collapse of its $35.5bn deal to buy AIA, the Asian arm of fallen US insurance giant AIG.

Standard Life resumes the results season for insurers after a two-day lull at the start of the week. Panmure Gordon is forecasting interim operating profit on a European Embedded Value (EEV) basis of £293m, down 16% year on year, "reflecting a tough comparative that included a positive experience variance and lower development expenditure."

The hotel trade is showing signs of recovering from the effects of the recession, and not just at the budget end of the market, and so results from InterContinental Hotels should show the Holiday Inn owner's fortunes on an upward trend.

Royal Bank of Scotland will dominate the morning headlines with the state-owned bank tipped to return to the black tomorrow.

On what may well be the busiest day of the year for company results the likes of Aviva, Barclays, Cobham, Randgold Resources, Rio Tinto, RSA Insurance, Schroders, Smith & Nephew and Unilever will be wrestling each other for prominent coverage.

The UK government is showing a paper profit on its 41% stake in high street banking giant Lloyds and should have further cause for celebration when the bank unveils profits for the first half of the year on Wednesday.

Coal-fired plant operator Drax has seen its share price warm up considerably since it said in mid-May that it continued to benefit from a very strong contracted position.

British Airways brings the curtain down on a hectic week, and it's been a manic first quarter for the carrier.

Anglo-Dutch titan Royal Dutch Shell is the last of the major integrated oil companies to report in the current results season. Until the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill debacle it had been languishing somewhat in the shadow of long time rival BP but the travails of its beleaguered rival has taken some of the heat off it.