* U.S. consumer sentiment below market forecast
* Banks, commodities down
* REITs in demand; British Land jumps on takeover talk
By Tricia Wright
LONDON, Aug 14 (Reuters) - Britain's top share index closed 0.9 percent lower on Friday, dented by data which showed a weakening in U.S. consumer sentiment, with banks and miners the biggest blue-chip fallers.
The FTSE 100 closed down 41.49 points at 4,713.97, having earlier hit a fresh 2009 intraday peak at 4,790.18. The blue-chip index had on Thursday ended at its highest closing level since last October.
The index has risen over 6 percent so far this year and has rebounded more than 36 percent since hitting a trough in March as improving economic data and corporate earnings fuelled expectation of an economic recovery.
Some saw scope for a retreat, at least in the short term.
"Markets are now a little overbought and will probably have a pullback," said high-profile hedge fund manager Crispin Odey, who early this year called the start of a new bull market, in a note to clients.
Stephen Pope, chief global market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald, said the FTSE 100 looked as if it faced a barrier of resistance at around 4,743.
"It's had a couple of tilts at that during the last few sessions, so I think that whilst that is an obstacle that has not been broken clearly, in a thin volume environment, and particularly on a Friday, any excuse to try and back away from that will be jumped upon," Pope said.
Volumes on the FTSE 100 index were about 76 percent of its 90-day daily average volume.
The Reuters/University of Michigan Surveys of Consumers' preliminary August consumer sentiment reading was significantly below the market forecast.)
BANKS DOWN
Banks took the most points off the FTSE 100 index, falling back after rising the previous session.
HSBC was the worst off, down 2.8 percent, with Royal Bank of Scotland and Standard Chartered off 0.5 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
Lloyds Banking Group bucked the trend, adding 1 percent, while Barclays was flat.
Life insurers, too, reversed Thursday's gains, with Prudential, which posted strong first-half numbers in the last session, down 2.6 percent and Friends Provident, which on Tuesday agreed to a takeover by Resolution, 1.1 percent weaker.
Old Mutual and Aviva were off 3.6 percent and 2.1 percent, respectively.
Weakness was seen among energy stocks as oil fell below $69 a barrel, hurt by U.S. consumer confidence.
BG Group fell 0.8 percent and Royal Dutch Shell dropped 0.2 percent.
Against a backdrop of softer metals prices, miners were under pressure, with Eurasian Natural Resources the heaviest blue-chip faller, down 5.6 percent, while Xstrata, BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto shed between 2.2 and 3.1 percent.
The falls came despite Goldman Sachs raising its sector stance to "attractive" from "neutral" and hiking target prices after raising its forecasts for metal prices.
The broker added Kazakhmys, off 0.3 percent, to its pan-European "Conviction Buy" list and pointed out the stock was the most leveraged to rising copper prices as global demand for the metal picks up.
British Land topped the FTSE 100 leaderboard, jumping 3.9 percent after the Daily Telegraph reported the company was a takeover target for a consortium of some of the richest families in the world.
The consortium has approached bankers at Credit Suisse to prepare a possible bid for the property company which could total up to 10 billion pounds including debt, the newspaper said.
The report boosted other real estate investment trusts, Liberty International and Land Securities Group up 0.7 to 1.7 percent.
Elsewhere there was good news on the state of Britain's housing market. Repossessions fell quarter-on-quarter, according to the Council of Mortgage lenders.
Meanwhile, courts in England and Wales issued 31 percent fewer mortgage possession orders year-on-year in the three months to June, the Ministry of Justice said. (Additional reporting by Laurence Fletcher; Editing by David Holmes)