Markets today: 5 things you may have missed

• Hopes that InterContinental Hotels will be the latest FTSE 100 company to receive a bid from an American predator have lifted its shares 5.7pc, the biggest rise in the benchmark index. The company, which is the world’s biggest hotels group, is said to have rebuffed an approach from a mystery US suitor.

• Conversely, AstraZeneca has fallen 2pc after US giant Pfizer confirmed that it was walking away from its bid for the drugmaker.

• Astra is moving against the wider market, with the FTSE 100 rising 32 points, or 0.5pc, to 6,847 in early trade. There are still hopes the index can break through its record closing high of 6,930.2, which was set on the last trading day of 1999, just before the dotcom bubble burst.

• In the mid-cap FTSE 250 – 129 points better at 15,835 – engineering software group Aveva leads the risers with a surge of 12.4pc, having impressed with an 11pc increase in full-year adjusted profits.

• At the other end of the second-tier is Ophir Energy, down 6.1pc after a well off the coast of Gabon did not find significant levels of oil and gas.

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