On a quiet day for corporate news, the market is currently dominated by analysts' recommendations, both positive and negative.
There are a couple of exceptions. Insurer Friends Provident is down 2.7p to 132.7p on talk that US private equity group JC Flowers may decide to walk away from its proposed £3.5bn bid, fed up with a lack of progress in getting round the table with the company.
And Cadbury Schweppes has fallen 15p to 563.5p after it reported disappointing sales of chocolate eggs, partly because of the early Easter which limited selling time. Today shareholders are voting on the proposed demerger of the company into the confectionery business and its Dr Pepper US drinks division.
As for the analysts, project management group Amec leads the FTSE 100 risers at the moment, up 38.5p to 759p after an upgrade from UBS.
The bank said: "Over the past three months, Amec is down 10% in sterling terms, underperforming its UK oil service peers Petrofac and Wood Group by around 16%, and down around 16% relative to the European oil services sector. We believe this drop is unjustified - the company has delivered on its strategy with two modest acquisitions, and could significantly benefit if sterling weakens relative to US dollar. We are upgrading to buy [from neutral], with an unchanged 875p price target."
But software specialist Sage is down 5.5p at 190.2p as Citigroup downgraded from buy to hold ahead of a trading statement due on Monday.
At the same time there has been a generally positive note on the company from Panmure Gordon, although the broker did trim its target price from 266p to 265p.
And thanks too to Panmure for pointing out this sign of the times as companies attempt to squeeze costs.
Overall the FTSE 100 has edged back above 6000 after three days of falls, up 37.3 points to 6002.4.
