BNP Paribas maintained its “Outperform” rating on ARM Holdings, up 6.5%, with a target price of 1300p. Barclays also reiterated its “Overweight” rating on the company’s shares with a target price of 1250p, but JPMorgan Chase was slightly less optimistic, reiterating its “Neutral” rating on the stock with a target price of 900p.
Jefferies Group restated its “Buy” rating on DS Smith, up 7.2%, with a target price of 410p. Greene King, up 1 %, announced that it has made an application to the UK Listing Authority for the block listing of 236,000 ordinary shares of 12.5p. This is in relation to the purchase of Spirit Group.
Barclays reaffirmed its “Equal weight” rating on CSR, up 0.7%, with a target price of 900p.
Marshall Motor Group is a recent addition from the Cambridge catchment to list its shares publicly. This is the motoring division of the larger Marshalls of Cambridge Holdings, which will remain privately held. The company said that the aim of this float was to raise capital for expansion. The listing was done on the AIM market and values the business at £115m.
JPMorgan Chase reiterated its “Underweight” rating on AVEVA Group, up 3.7%, with a target price of 1220p. However Barclays reaffirmed its “Equal weight” recommendation on the stock with a target price of 1690p.
Vernalis, up 2.2%, announced that it has entered into a drug discovery collaboration with Taisho Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. for an undisclosed sum. Canaccord Genuity and Stifel Nicolaus both reaffirmed their “Buy” rating on the stock with target prices of 66p and 63p respectively
Brady, which remained unchanged at 102p, stated that it has made an application for 41,500 ordinary shares of 1p each to be admitted to trading on AIM. Gaming Realms, flat at 33.8p, announced that it sold its Bingo Godz and Castle Jackpot brands to European Domain Management Ltd. for a cash consideration of £0.5m.
Blinkx, down 6.2%, in its trading update indicated that it expects to meet projections for FY2015, even after disclosing that EBITDA, acquisition and exceptional costs would be significantly lower from the previous year.
UK markets ended the week on a stronger footing, after data showed that Eurozone investor confidence climbed to its highest level in almost seven and a half years in April, and following better-than-expected German industrial production data. Also, the Bank of England kept its monetary policy stance unchanged. The FTSE 100 index climbed 3.8% to 7,089.8, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index advanced 3.2% to finish at 3,327.3. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index edged 3.8% higher to 3,929.7.
US markets closed higher last week, after minutes of the Fed’s March monetary policy meeting indicated that officials were divided on the timing of increasing interest rates in the US. The DJIA index gained 1.7% to 18,057.7, while the NASDAQ Index rose 2.2% to 4,996.
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