Market Report: Rolls-Royce revs up after reports of Airbus deal

Rolls-Royce shifted gear as investors bought into reports that the engine-maker is poised for a slice of a billion dollar deal.

Rolls revved 23p higher to 1,069p yesterday on news that airline giant Airbus is close to naming the company as the engine supplier for the £2bn upgrade of its A330 fleet. The contract would be welcome for the British manufacturer, which has suffered a profit warning and contract cancellations so far this year.

Elsewhere, EasyJet slipped 15p to 1,459p on news that rival Tui Travel, up 13.5p at 403.5p, is planning a merger with its German parent company.

Housebuilders continued to rally in the wake of the Bank of England's lenient approach to the mortgage market. UBS called the Bank's measures "sensible but relatively mild" and declared "it's not all over yet" for the housebuilders. Barratt Developments built up 11.6p to 374.5p, Persimmon added 19p to 1,278p, Redrow climbed 14.7p to 282.3p, Taylor Wimpey was 3.9p better at 113.8p and even estate agent Foxtons got in on the action, up 19.3p to 302.3p.

The bluechip index had what David Madden at IG called a "good finish to a bad week" – the FTSE 100 closed up 22.65 points at 6,757.77, but is still 61.46 points lower than it finished last week.

Microchip maker Imagination Technologies collapsed 13.1p to 211.7p after its biggest shareholder, Intel, dumped almost 10 per cent of the company at around a 17p discount. Intel said the sale was "part of its ordinary course of portfolio management".

A disastrous warehouse fire has left Asos trading at a deep discount. Trillion dollar US investment fund the Capital Group yesterday took the opportunity to raise its stake in the business to 10 per cent, but the online fashion retailer still retreated 12p to 2,988p.

Camco Clean Energy lost a third of its value on AIM after announcing a deeply discounted share issue. The company raised £1.5m through the issue of 25 million new shares at 4p, 42 per cent below Thursday's closing price. Camco lost 2.25p to 4.62p.

IMImobile got off to a solid start on AIM, with shares rising to 133.5p after being offered at 120p.