Deutsche Bank and Jefferies reissued their “Hold” rating on ARM Holdings, up 11.3%, with a target price of 1050p and 923p respectively. JPMorgan Chase reiterated its “Neutral” rating on the stock.
DS Smith, up 1.3%, announced that its full year revenues increased to £4.1bn from £3.8bn in the last year, with profit before tax rising to £201m. The Board has recommended a final dividend of 8.8p per share, amounting to £83m. The company also announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire Portuguese corrugated packaging manufacturer, Gopaca. In addition to this, they also acquired POS specialist Creo from investment management company Writtle. Jefferies, Goodbody and JPMorgan Chase reiterated their “Hold” ratings while Beaufort Securities restated its “Buy” rating. Jefferies stated a target price of 390p on the stock.
Abcam, up 2.3%, announced that Gavin Wood has been appointed as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and will join on 18 July 2016, replacing Jeff Iliffe. After the handover period, he will also be an Executive Director on the Board. Numis Securities reiterated its “Add” rating on the stock with a target price of 700p.
Quixant, unchanged at 198.5p, announced that Jon Jayal has been appointed as Chief Operating Officer to the Board. Jon is one of the founders of Quixant and currently is Director of Quixant UK Limited.
Cambridge Cognition Holdings, down 4%, announced that it has signed a distribution agreement with MANUS Neurodynamica Limited, a UK healthcare technology firm. The company will have sole rights to market the MANUS Parkinson's Pen, a sensor pen for diagnosis and monitoring of neuromotor impairments. It expects to commence marketing the product through its existing global sales channels in Q4 2016, after completion of final product improvements. FinnCap gave a target price of 100p.
Stifel Nicolaus reissued its “Buy” rating on Vernalis, down 8.1%. 1Spatial, down 12.9%, announced that it has issued 22.6m new ordinary shares at 4p per share to the shareholders of Laser Scan Inc (LSI), as it exercised the call option on 29 February 2016. The call option enables the company to acquire further 26% stake in LSI, taking its total holding in LSI to 73%.
UK markets closed mostly higher in the previous week. The major indices started the week on a stronger note, amid hopes that the nation would choose to stay in the EU. However, the indices trimmed their earlier gains after majority of people voted for “Brexit”. The FTSE 100 index rose 2% to 6,138.7, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index fell 0.6% to close at 3,341.1. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index gained 2.5% to 3,750.4.
US markets ended lower in the last week, amid Brexit fears and as the US durable goods orders dropped more than expected in May due to heavy decline in defense aircraft orders. The consumer sentiment index also slid to a lower than expected level in June. The DJIA index dropped 1.6% to 17,400.8, while the NASDAQ Index fell 1.9% to 4,708.
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