Barclays initiated its “Equal Weight” rating on Johnson Matthey, down 3.4%.
DS Smith, up 1.4%, announced that it has made an investment of worth €2.6m in the injection moulding plant in Bilzen, Belgium, which includes the addition of four production lines and will increase the production capacity by nearly 50%.
Shore Capital reaffirmed its “Buy” rating on Greene King, down 1.6%, while JP Morgan lowered its target price on the stock to 810p from 830p and maintained their “Overweight” rating.
Royal Bank of Canada initiated its “Sector Performer” rating on Abcam, up 1.1%, with a target price of 610p.
Sareum Holdings, up 20%, announced today that its first half profit before tax stood at £573k, compared to a loss of £568k reported in the previous year.
Vernalis, up 5.8%, announced that it has received a $3m milestone payment under its collaboration with Corvus Pharmaceuticals Inc, as it achieved positive data from its Phase 1/1b study in January 2017 and expanded the patients involved in the trials. The payment was in consideration of the licensing rights of CPI-444 adenosine receptor antagonist programme, acquired by Corvus in February 2015. Canaccord Genuity, Stifel Nicolaus and Panmure Gordon restated their “Buy” rating on the stock with target prices of 88p, 104p and 65p respectively.
Cambridge Cognition Holdings, which remained unchanged at 77.5p, today announced that it has appointed Dowgate Capital Stockbrokers as its Joint Broker with immediate effect, while Finncap will remain as its Nominated Adviser and Joint Broker.
Horizon Discovery Group, down 6.9%, announced that it has signed a Master Services Agreement with a major global pharmaceutical company, which includes in vitro services in addition to the in vivo services already provided by the company. The new range of services covers the custom cell line engineering, target identification, validation screening, drug combination screening and cell-based assay services.
UK markets closed mostly higher in the last week. The annual inflation rate was less than anticipated in January, despite notching its highest level since June 2014. The nation’s ILO unemployment rate remained steady, however average earnings grew less than market forecast in the October-December 2016 period. The FTSE 100 index added 0.6% to settle at 7,300, while the FTSE AIM 100 index rose 0.8% to close at 4,350.9. The FTSE techMARK 100 index lowered by 0.2% to end at 4,335.2.
US markets finished higher in the previous week, led by gains in the financial sector stocks. The Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen, hinted at interest rate hike at a faster pace, citing higher inflation and growth rates. The nation’s retail sales also witnessed a higher than expected rise in January. The DJIA index advanced 1.7% to end at 20,624.1, while the NASDAQ index gained 1.8% to close at 5,838.6.
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