Friday, 11^th May: ZPG plc were the main attraction for the vast majority of the day on Friday, particularly on the FTSE 250. Shares shot up more than 30% after the £2.2 billion takeover by US venture capital group Silver Lake was announced. ZPG includes the likes of popular British property websites Zoopla and PrimeLocation, and the price comparison service uSwitch. The takeover adds to the current M&A trend which is sweeping across the UK and has supported the upward slope of the index of top UK companies in what has otherwise been a fairly difficult time for them with regards to Brexit’s impact on the economy and the uncertainty surrounding what it will bring both in the nearer and more distant future.

Within the more exclusive FTSE 100 index, ITV were the biggest gainer, still benefiting from Thursday’s Q1 trading update which reported good revenue growth and a positive outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year. At around 15:00 GMT ITV were up more than 7.0% at the top of the index.

Superdry have had a much more unfortunate time and are also still feeling the wrath of yesterday’s full year update which revealed a fall in store sales, but a 12% rise in revenue, demonstrating once again the unforgiving nature of the market at this moment in time. After closing almost 20% lower on Thursday, they continued to fall a further 4.24% to £11.97 in the afternoon on Friday, which they last dropped to in June of 2016.

The FTSE 250 managed to make a more impactful gain than the FTSE 100 at the end of the week, largely due to the contribution from ZPG which closed 30.6% higher. The FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 both closed 0.31% and 0.42% higher respectively.