Shares in ARM Holdings rose 5% during the week as the company launched a new “System on a Chip” (SoC) to deliver advanced graphics performance and Ultra High Definition resolutions. Numis Securities issued a “Reduce” rating on the stock, while Credit Suisse recommended the stock as “Outperform”.
Johnson Matthey, up 8.5%, announced a 31% increase in its interim results to £6.41bn and a 12% rise in its pre-tax profit to £202.1m. However, AVEVA announced an 11% increase in its interim revenue to £108.5m and a 6% rise in its pre-tax profit to £27.3m, but reported contract problems at two of its major customers. This caused the share price to come back by 11%
Ubisense Group rose 15% on the back of a new order worth about €0.7 million from a large European automotive manufacturer, for the deployment of its ‘Ubisense Smart Factory System’.
Dialight, up 3.4%, announced that its Non-Executive Director, Richard Stuckes, Senior Independent Director, Stephen Bird and Chairman, Bill Ronald, have purchased 10,870, 10,000 and 2,500 shares in the company, at £9.15, £9.00 and £9.13 per share, respectively. Netcall gained 4.2%, after the Chairman, Michael Jackson, stated that Netcall has witnessed optimistic start to the year, with sales orders considerably ahead of that recorded last year.
Cyan Holdings fell 30.3%. The company has not made any announcements this week but an on-going delay of a large order may have caused this fall in share price. Sphere Medical Holding, down 16.4%, noted that Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics now has an option to enter into negotiations to acquire exclusive global commercialisation rights to ‘Proxima’, and noted that it expects to achieve ‘Proxima CE Mark’ authorisation during the first-half of 2014.
Sepura declined 13.2%, after it reported a 58% drop in its pre-tax profit to €1.6m from €3.7m. Frontier Developments, down 4.8%, announced the release of its ‘Coaster Crazy Deluxe’ video game on the Wii U on Nintendo eShop, and on Apple iOS devices.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index fell 0.3%, to 6,674.3, after the minutes of the Bank of England’s monetary policy meeting revealed that UK policymakers voiced “uncertainties” over the strength in the UK economic growth. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index lost 0.7%, to 2,989.7, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index advanced 1.8%, to 3,714.7.
US markets closed higher during the week, as investors discounted the risk associated with a sooner-than-expected reduction in the US Fed’s stimulus, after data showed an improvement in the US retail sales and jobless benefit claims. The DJIA added 0.6%, to close at 16,064.8, and the NASDAQ rose 0.1%, to settle at 3,991.7.
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