ARM Holdings drifted down 1.8% during the week, despite positive broker recommendations. Jefferies and Bank of America Merrill Lynch both assigned a “Buy” rating to the stock. Jefferies increased ARM’s target price from 805p to 1300p, stating that its rising royalty rates and record licensing would help it to remain well-positioned for the mid to long term.
Aveva Group was unchanged despite an “Overweight” rating from Morgan Stanley, which reiterated a target price of 2400p. Shares in Greene King, up 0.9%, benefitted from a favourable review by Oriel Securities which recommended investors to buy the stock at a target price of 711p.
Abcam, up 6.3%, announced that Director, Philippe Cotrel, exercised share options over 40,755 ordinary shares in the company and later sold 40,755 shares at 467p per share. Following the sale Mr Cotrel’s total beneficial interest in the company stood at 9,787 ordinary shares.
Meanwhile, PDX suffered another bad week, falling by 29.5% to 1p and emerging as the top loser in the Cambridge Index. Elektron Technology, down 5.4%, agreed to the sale of its subsidiary Total Carbide Limited to Versarien Plc, for a consideration of about £2.3m.
Brady, down 4.6%, reported a 61.7% fall in its pre-tax profits, due to acquisition related charges. However, the company announced a 47% rise in its revenue to £28.1m from £19.2m. The company also announced that it has promoted Brian Collins as CEO of its Physicals business unit. In addition, the company granted 300,000 and 200,000 nil-cost options to its Chief Executive, Gavin Lavelle and Finance Director, Tony Ratcliffe, respectively, having an exercise price of 88.5p per share.
Ubisense Group fell 0.3% despite the company announcing that a South Korean engine manufacturer has selected Ubisense for its tool tracking solution, and has commenced deployment on multiple engine assembly lines at their domestic plant.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index closed 1.1% higher, at 6489.7, after revised fourth quarter GDP data indicated that Japan’s economy has stabilised following two quarters of recession, and following upbeat Chinese exports data. However, weaker-than-expected UK industrial and manufacturing production data capped gains. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index added 0.6% to 2810.5, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index fell 0.3% to 3355.8.
US markets finished higher during the week, as better-than-estimated retail sales and jobless claims data boosted optimism that the nation’s economy is improving. The Dow Jones Index rose 0.8% to 14514.1, while the Nasdaq Index advanced 0.1% to 3249.1.
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Cambridge Index falls 0.4%
19 March 2013
The Cambridge Index fell 0.4% or 61.6 points to 14,685.8, following modest losses in index heavyweight stocks such as ARM Holdings and Johnson Matthey.