BMO Capital Markets reiterated its “Market Perform” recommendation on ARM Holdings, down 1.2%, with a price target of 860p. Liberum Capital maintained its “Sell” rating on the stock with a price target of 700p.
In its trading statement for the third quarter ended 31 December 2014, Johnson Matthey, down 7.7%, indicated that its group sales climbed 5% YoY to £745m. For FY2015, the outlook for its divisions remained in line with its announcement in the half year report. BNP Paribas, Numis and JPMorgan Chase all gave positive recommendations on the stock with price targets of between 3550p – 3800p.
Canaccord Genuity reiterated its “Buy” recommendation on Greene King, up 2.3%, with a price target of 880p. Investec reduced its target price on Abcam, down 3.3%, to 480p from 485p and maintained its “Buy” rating.
Northland Securities maintained its “Buy” rating on Amino Technologies, up 5%, with a target price of 130p. Frontier Developments, flat at 241p, announced the start of development of a self-published game called Coaster Park Tycoon, along with the ongoing development of its existing self-published Elite: Dangerous title. In its business update,
Sphere Medical Holding, which traded unchanged, stated that Proxima 3 was launched into the UK market last September and commercialisation activities were proceeding according to plan. The company also mentioned that it was continuing its plan to commercialise Proxima 3 in Europe in H1 2015. The Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics Collaboration Agreement continues to progress satisfactorily, focussing on the product enhancements planned for Proxima 4.
In its trading update, Netcall, down 1.7%, announced that it had continued to trade at par with management expectations during the first half of the year. Canaccord Genuity maintained its “Buy” rating on Ubisense Group, down 5.2%, with a price target of 280p.
In its trading update for the period from 1 October 2014 to 23 January 2015, Aveva Group, down 6.1%, announced that the performance in Engineering & Design Systems was largely in line with its projections. The company further cautioned of challenging conditions in its enterprise solutions division mainly due to its budget constraints. Westhouse Securities reissued its “Add” rating on the stock with a price target of 1780p. Berenberg Bank and Numis Securities maintained their “Buy” recommendation on the stock with a price target of 1977p and 1740p, respectively. Panmure Gordon and Liberum Capital reiterated their “Hold” rating on the stock. Investec reduced its price target on the stock to 1280p from 1350p with a “Hold” rating.
UK markets ended lower last week, after data showed that the economy grew less than forecast in the fourth quarter of 2014. The FTSE 100 index declined 1.2% to 6,749.4, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index eased 0.2% to finish at 3,027.4. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index edged 0.8% lower to 3,601.1
US markets closed weaker last week, after the Fed kept is monetary policy statement mostly unchanged and following a less than anticipated growth in US GDP. The DJIA index dropped 2.9% to 17,165, while the NASDAQ Index slipped 2.6% to 4,635.2.
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