ARM Holdings surged 10.8% and emerged as the top gainer in the Cambridge Index, as it revealed a larger-than-expected rise in its second-quarter profit, while also predicting that its annual revenue will be in line with market expectations. Second quarter revenues jumped 15% to £135.5m and pre-tax profit jumped 23% to £66.5m.
CSR, up 4.6%, announced that its underlying second quarter revenues rose to $266.5m from $193.9m, while profit stood at $17.3m, up from $16.1m recorded in the same quarter a year ago. However, Johnson Matthey bucked the trend and fell 1.4% following a downbeat first quarter trading update.
Sepura, up 7.6%, announced that its Chief Financial Officer, Steve Chamberlain bought 50,000 shares in the company at an average price of 74.7p each, representing approximately 0.036% of its issued share capital. HiWave Technologies, up 5.5%, announced the release of new Farina(TM) platform that enables the next generation headsets to deliver clear audio without obstructing the ear canal.
Tristel, up 4.9%, anticipated better-than-expected full-year profits. Another notable gainer was Blinkx, up 7.4%. Dialight, up 3.4%, announced that its final revenues rose to £53.1m compared to £46.8m and profit for the period climbed to £5.5m from £4.0m. ANT, up 1.4%, confirmed that GlobalSat, a leading manufacturer of satellite and terrestrial products has licensed its ANT Galio HbbTV Platform.
Sareum Holdings declined 10% and emerged as the largest faller in the Cambridge Index. Ubisense Group, down 6.6%, said that it expects to report underlying half year revenue ahead of the same period in the preceding year, even though its full year revenue is anticipated to be at the lower end of expectations.
Other prominent fallers were Phytopharm, Cyan Holdings and Netcall, all down between 4% and 7.3%. Abcam, down 3.8%, expects its 2012 pre-tax profits before one-off costs to be slightly ahead of expectations, adding that its revenue grew 17% in 2012.
LPA Group, down 1.6%, announced that it has acquired an existing 44,000 square foot factory a short distance from its existing Tudor Works facility in Saffron Walden, Essex, for a gross consideration of £1.3m. Scientific Digital Imaging, up 2.4%, announced that its full year revenues fell slightly to £7.2m from £7.3m. The company also reported a pre-tax profit of £0.02m compared to a loss of £0.16m recorded last year.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index closed 0.4% lower, at 5,627.2, after UK’s second quarter GDP shrank by the largest amount since 2009. Renewed concern that Spain would seek a sovereign bailout and a potential Greek debt default also weighed on market sentiment. However, later in the week, worries over a deepening Eurozone debt crisis eased, after key European officials pledged to preserve the European common currency. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index gained 1.2% to 2,331.8, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index dropped 2.9% to 3,012.4.
US markets ended higher last week, as weak GDP and other economic data raised hopes of further monetary stimulus by the Federal Reserve. The markets also received a boost from the change in sentiment towards Europe. The Dow Jones Index advanced 2.0% to 13,075.7, while the Nasdaq Index gained 1.1% to 2,958.1.
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