Analysts at Bank of America-Merrill Lynch have been running the rule over Ocado's distribution centre and have concluded that the grocery delivers recent problems have been due to supply issues that can be overcome rather than a downturn in demand.

They lift their rating on the company to "buy" from "neutral" and note that Ocado is on the case, having identified the bottlenecks.

Ocado's shares fell sharply last month after news of a price-cutting initiative by Britain's biggest supermarket operator Tesco emerged. Broker Panmure Gordon said this was bad news for Ocado.

Thomas Cook's shares rocketed on Friday after the travel group revealed a new bank deal, which Peel Hunt says gives the company a little "breathing space".

The firm announced that it has reached agreement with its bankers to amend the terms of its existing facilities while securing an extra £100m of headroom.

"As promised the group has delivered a new banking deal that provides for greater flexibility at a point in time when it is clearly required," said analyst Nick Batram.

"Focus will now return to the job of improving profitability against a backdrop of deteriorating consumer confidence. Definitely a positive step forward, but there still a lot of hard work ahead," Batram added.

The broker keeps its hold rating and 55p target.

Evolution Securities has upgraded information technology firm Colt Group from neutral to a (speculative) buy.

The broker says that the firm's third quarter statement released yesterday showed a rare consensus beat on revenue and earnings, but higher capital expenditure and perennially poor working capital led to a €15m miss on cash-flow.

"Without cash-flow, it is impossible to make a convincing stand-alone case for COLT, said analyst Steve Malcolm.

Nevertheless, the broker suggests that COLT could and should be acquired by a larger competitor. "Customer reach, network synergies and tax losses make it simple to concoct an accretive deal for return-hungry telcos."

The discounted cash flow value falls to 110p, but Evolution adds 10p of speculative bid premium to bring the new target price to 120p, down from 140p previously.

Related share prices
COLT Group SA (COLT) share price
Thomas Cook Group (TCG) share price
Ocado Group (OCDO) share price