Market Round Up: Cig displays ban tipped to put a drag on supermarkets

Smaller shops, however, get another three years until they have to follow suit, and there were suggestions in the Square Mile today that this delay could prompt £1 billion in sales to shift to convenience stores.

Arguing that with smokers not only forced to queue for longer in supermarkets for their fix but also having to guess as to whether their favourite brand is in stock, Oriel Securities said "there will doubtless be a shift in cigarette expenditure towards the smaller stores".

Analysts from the broker pointed out that peripheral sales will get a boost as well, claiming that more than two-thirds of those buying ciggies in convenience stores will also decide to pick up something else.

"We think that the display ban therefore increases the importance to the food retailers of having a large-scale convenience chain," they added as they highlighted their "reduce" stance on Morrisons.

Whereas its supermarket rivals have enjoyed high levels of sales growth from their smaller stores, the group so far has only opened three trial premises. Following the criticism, Morrisons largely missed out of the market rally, underperforming its fellow blue-chip stocks by edging just 0.9p higher to 291.7p, although Tesco and Sainsbury's could only creep up 0.1p to 320.78p and 0.2p to 290.6p respectively.

The passing of austerity measures in Greece was enough to push the FTSE 100 up 52.87 points to 5905.26, its highest since last July, with Lloyds leading the way by advancing 1.15p to 35.64p.The heavyweight diggers were also given a decent bounce by the news, with Anglo American ticking up 69p to 2,814.5p despite its platinum unit warning that South Africa's drive to increase safety in the country's mines meant it was unlikely to see an increase in production this year.

Meanwhile, Xstrata was 18p better off at 1215.25p amid hopes that calls for commodities trader Glencore (down 0.2p to 434.88p) to improve the terms of its merger offer for the miner will be successful.

Vodafone's announcement that it is mulling a move for Cable & Wireless Worldwide meant the troubled telecoms firm was shooting up the FTSE 250, spurting 5.6p, or 28%, to 25.33p.Another frequent subject of bid speculation, Tui Travel, advanced 8.9p to 210.65p following reports that its parent company Tui AG could agree to dispose of a stake in the Hapag-Lloyd shipping firm this week. There has been long-standing optimism such a move may free up funds for the German firm to snap up the rest of the tour operator it does not already own, although Tui AG still looks set to be left with a larger stake in Hapag-Lloyd than originally intended.

Down on AIM, Alexander David Securities slumped 0.04p, or 22%, to 0.14p after the tiddler admitted it was likely to have suffered a "modest loss" over 2011, while the independent broker also raised £350,000 through a share placing.