* FTSE 100 ends up 0.6 pct; up 3 pct on week
* Euro group, credit ratings moves in focus over weekend
* Barclays leads financials on "triple-witching" day
By Simon Jessop
LONDON, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Britain's leading share index closed higher on Friday, extending its winning run to a fourth day on hopes euro zone finance ministers would firm up their response to the region's debt crisis over the weekend.
The politically fractious moves to date, fuelling Greek default and contagion fears, have weighed on regional stocks, so few were willing to go short into the weekend in case a significant policy shift was forthcoming, traders said.
Chief among market hopes was that the attendance of U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner may herald support for a leveraging of the region's bailout fund, to allow it to handle loans to bigger countries such as Spain and Italy.
While short-term technical charts backed the FTSE 100's move -- in choppy trade ahead of the expiry of stock and index options and futures -- analyst Gerard Lane said he was sceptical the ministers' meeting would offer many surprises.
"If you're building your bull case on the back of European finance ministers suddenly agreeing and being able to deliver the national parliaments, you may be disappointed," he said.
"It's not an economic problem, it's a political problem. There are different drivers within each country preventing a solution from being found."
Talk of an Italian credit downgrade over the weekend acted to cap gains by the close, as did talk the next tranche of bailout funds to Greece could be delayed, David Jones, Chief Market Strategist at IG Index, said.
The FTSE 100 ended the day up 0.6 percent, or 30.87 points, at 5,368.41, taking its weekly gain to 3 percent. The index remains down 0.5 percent in September and 9 percent year-to-date, however.
Andy Ash, head of sales at Monument Securities, said a fairly light "triple-witching" expiry of stock index futures and options, and stock options in the morning had seen shorts squeezed and the market was much flatter.
He added some investors had retained part of their long exposure in case of a positive surprise over the weekend.
Banks , heavily sold over the last five months, led sectoral gainers and added most points to the blue-chip index, with Barclays up 3.4 percent in volume more than one-and-a-half times its 90-day daily average.
"Barclays has been a geared play on the crisis, due to its exposure to Portugal, Spain and to some extent Ireland and Italy," Cormac Leech, banks analyst at Canaccord Genuity said, adding Thursday's joint central bank action to boost dollar liquidity was also supportive.
"[Barclays investment bank] BarCap would potentially have quite a lot of dollar funding that would need to be rolled over so, to the extent that those swap lines are in place, it takes away a lot of the liquidity pressure."
TECHNICALS
Technical analyst Nicolas Suiffet at Paris-based Trading Central said short-term momentum oscillators pointed to further gains as long as 5,200 points remains as a support.
Should the pivot point not be breached, he expected a limited rise towards 5,450, the Sept. 1 high, before targeting the 61.8 percent retracement of the Jul. 8 to Aug. 9 fall.
IG Index's Jones was less optimistic about short-term direction, however: "This is the fourth time in as many weeks that the FTSE 100 has pushed back to the 5,400 level -- so far it has lacked the conviction to push much higher.
"At the moment, it would take some sort of surprise assistance to drive stock markets meaningfully higher -- the risk is that the familiar down pressure will return on Monday."
(Editing by David Hulmes)
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