Sareum Holdings surged 128%, unsurprisingly emerging as the top gainer in the Cambridge Index. The company confirmed that it was in advanced negotiations with a potential licensing partner that may lead to a licensing deal for one of its research programs.
Other prominent gainers included Scientific Digital Imaging, Cyan Holdings, Phytopharm and Blinkx, all up between 4.8% and 25.6%. ARM Holdings announced that its licensee Nvidia, has agreed a partnership deal with Lenovo to supply chips for devices running Microsoft’s Windows RT operating system. Morgan Stanley kept its recommendation on the stock as “Overweight”, with a target price of 725p.
Kier Group, up 1.5%, announced that the Alliance Community Partnership, of which it is a member, has been named as the preferred bidder for a new infrastructure hub in south-west Scotland. Johnson Matthey was noted as a “hold” by S&P, and rose 3.3%. Ubisense Group, up 1.5%, announced that the AGCO Group has purchased a production installation of the company’s location based manufacturing suite. The company also reported that Canaccord Genuity Limited has been appointed as the nominated adviser and broker for the company with immediate effect.
Amongst those who ended the week in negative territory, HiWave Technologies fell 5.8% while Tristel, down 4.2%, announced that its Non Executive Director, Peter Stephens, would step down from the company’s board at the next annual general meeting. Brokers, Panmure Gordon and Canaccord Genuity assigned a “Hold” rating to Greene King’s stock, down 4.0%.
Other noticeable fallers were Netcall and Sphere Medical Holdings, down 0.9% and 1.8% respectively. ANT, down 0.7%, announced that its Chief Executive Officer, Simon Woodward, has resigned from the company and further added that Pauline Ingram, Finance Director, has been appointed as interim CEO. The company also informed the market that its Non-Executive Directors would support the management team and undertake executive duties until such time as a new CEO is appointed.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index closed 1.0% higher, at 5,847.1, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed ECB’s bond-buying proposal and after a slew of European companies revealed better-than-expected quarterly earnings. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index climbed 1.1% to 2,368.9, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index rose 2.1% to 3,121.9.
US markets rose during the week, on optimism that the Federal Reserve would introduce additional measures to boost the economy. The Dow Jones Index rose 0.9% to 13,208.0, while the Nasdaq Index added 1.8% to 3,020.9.
View the report in full
____________________________________________________
Cambridge Index gains 1.7%
14 August 2012
Global equity markets put in a good performance last week, encouraged by hopes of fresh stimulus from central banks. The Cambridge Index gained 1.7% or 184.5 points to 10,893.8, with all but one of the top ten index heavyweight stocks ending ahead.