HSBC reaffirmed its “Reduce” rating on AVEVA Group, down 0.8%, with a target price of 3010p.
Johnson Matthey, up 4.4%, announced that it is taking actions to support its employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and communities during COVID-19 pandemic. Also, it has started manufacturing goggles and visors at its various sites, which are being offered to community medical staff and care organisations. It has also donated PPE equipment to them.
Abcam, up 14.1%, in its business update announced that it has not furloughed any staff, nor participated in COVID-19 related government assistance schemes, and has a strong balance sheet with £80m in net cash and a £200m revolving credit facility. RBC Capital Markets upgraded its rating on the stock to “Outperform” from “Sector Perform” with a target price of 1300p.
Feedback, up 16.7%, announced that its flagship imaging-based communication platform, Bleepa, will be available across the Pennine Acute Hospitals NHS Trust with immediate effect as a key patient management tool to assist its coronavirus response.
Xaar, up 15.6%, announced that it swung to a loss before tax of £11.9m, after its annual revenues dropped significantly to £49.4m.
Tristel, up 10.5%, announced that it has appointed Isabel Napper as a Non-Executive Director.
Quartix Holdings, up 7.7%, in its Q1 trading statement, announced today that trading for the three months to 31 March 2020 was in line with meeting market expectations for the year.
SDI Group, unchanged at 58p, announced that it expects its full year profit to be in line with market expectations, with sales of around £24m. Further, the company stated that it will slash salaries and fees of all SDI board by 33% for a period of three months to reduce its overall costs.
Quixant, unchanged at 66p, announced the appointment of Nigel Payne as an independent Non-Executive Director.
Dialight, down 6.1%, announced that order intake during Q1 was in line with its expectations, as softening in US project business was outpaced by a substantial rise in MRO orders. Separately, Dialight stated that most of its Malaysian manufacturing operations is not expected to re-open until after 28 April 2020 and has now voluntarily suspended manufacturing operations in Mexico.
Horizon Discovery Group, down 12.8%, announced that its Chosource platform supports the development of immunotherapy to treat autoimmune diseases including inflammatory bowel diseases, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. Today, the company announced that its FY2019 revenues rose 7.8% to £58.3m, while loss before tax widened 74% to £11.5m.
UK markets finished mostly lower in the last week, as concerns over the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic continued to weigh on the investor sentiment. In economic news, British manufacturing and services sector activities, both, fell more than expected in April, while the nation’s unemployment rate surprisingly jumped in the three months to February period. The FTSE 100 index declined 0.6% to settle at 5752.2, while the FTSE techMARK 100 index lost 2% to end at 4839.2. Meanwhile, the FTSE AIM 100 index rose 3.2% to close at 4010.2.
US markets ended lower in the previous week, following the failure of an experimental antiviral drug for the coronavirus treatment in its first randomised clinical trial. On the data front, the US manufacturing PMI slumped to its lowest level in 11 years in April, while the nation’s services PMI dropped to an all-time low in April. Additionally, the US existing home sales recorded its biggest monthly drop since November 2015 in March, whereas durable goods orders declined to an August 2014-low in March. The DJIA index fell 1.9% to end at 23775.3, and the NASDAQ index also lost 0.2% to close at 8634.5.