LONDON (ShareCast) - (ShareCast News) - The FTSE 100 index rose 0.17% to 7,173.75 in the late afternoon.
Supermarket giant Tesco climbed as it announced it has agreed to merge with the UK's largest food wholesale operator Booker Group. Under the terms of the merger, each Booker scheme shareholder would receive 0.861 new Tesco shares and 42.6p in cash, representing a value of £3.7bn for Booker's ordinary share capital.

The world's largest producer of silver from ore Fresnillo shone as the price of the metal rose 0.56%.

Budget airline Easyjet flew lower on Friday as Goldman Sachs and Davy downgraded their stances on the stock. Goldman downgraded easyJet to 'neutral' from 'buy' and cut the price target to 970p from 1,160p, citing a deteriorating free cash flow outlook. The bank said ongoing pricing pressure on intra-European routes, combined with FX headwinds, will put pressure on easyJet's profitability.Davy downgraded the stock to 'neutral' from 'outperform'. "We think that easyJet now has big decisions to make - is it a dividend yield or growth stock?".

Meanwhile supermarket rival Sainsbury tanked on the back of Tesco's merger announcement. Chief market analyst at IG Chris Beauchamp "The 10% bounce in the shares is a clear vote of confidence by the market, and certainly puts the Sainsbury's/Argos deal in the shade."

Astrazeneca gave back gains from the previous session when it announced that it was granted six months of paediatric exclusivity for its Symbicort inhalation aerosol for asthma from the US Food and Drug Administration.

Risers

Tesco (TSCO) 207.90p 10.00%
Fresnillo (FRES) 1,416.00p 3.21%
Glencore (GLEN) 327.70p 2.26%
Severn Trent (SVT) 2,254.00p 2.13%
DCC (DCC) 6,190.00p 1.98%
Sage Group (SGE) 610.50p 1.92%
Smurfit Kappa Group (SKG) 2,095.00p 1.90%
Compass Group (CPG) 1,413.00p 1.51%
Smith & Nephew (SN.) 1,187.00p 1.45%
Admiral Group (ADM) 1,794.00p 1.41%

Fallers

easyJet (EZJ) 968.50p -2.66%
AstraZeneca (AZN) 4,219.50p -1.83%
Antofagasta (ANTO) 822.00p -1.79%
Land Securities Group (LAND) 989.50p -1.64%
Pearson (PSON) 612.50p -1.53%
Sainsbury (J) (SBRY) 254.20p -1.51%
Prudential (PRU) 1,566.50p -1.26%
Shire Plc (SHP) 4,384.00p -1.22%
Barclays (BARC) 229.65p -1.16%
Burberry Group (BRBY) 1,647.00p -1.14%

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