Cambridge Index rises 1.8%

The Cambridge Index added 1.8% or 275.78 points to 15,232.7, as five of the top ten index heavyweights posted gains.

Numis Securities reaffirmed its “Buy” rating on ARM Holdings, up 4.7%. Liberum Capital reissued its “Hold” rating on Johnson Matthey, up 1.1%, with a price target of 3,270p. Citigroup reaffirmed its “Buy” rating on DS Smith, up 3.1%, with a price target of 350p. Citigroup  also  restated its “Buy” rating on Greene King, down 3.1%, with a price target of 1,000p.

LPA Group up 1.6%, has shifted its electro-mechanical business to a new facility at Shire Hill in Saffron Walden. The company stated that the prearranged process was completed with minimal interruption to output, which was in line with customer requirements.

Vernalis’s share price rose 0.4% over the week, despite reporting a pre-tax loss of £5.5m for the six months ended 30 June, compared to a profit of £2.6m a year ago in the same period.  This was mainly due to an unrealised foreign exchange loss. Revenue stood at £6.2m, compared to £7.6m in the previous year, as a result of lower collaboration and ‘frovatriptan’ royalty income. However, Vernalis and Servier announced the achievement of two milestones in their oncology drug discovery collaborations, highlighting a payment of €0.75m to Vernalis. N+1 Singer, Oriel Securities and Canaccord Genuity restated their “Buy” ratings with respective target prices of 42p, 60p and 52p.

Horizon Discovery Group, down 0.3%, announced that three of the world's expert gene editing scientists, Dr. Emmanuelle Charpentier, Dr. Keith Joung and Dr. Feng Zhang, have joined the company's Scientific Advisory Board.

Kier Group’s share price fell 1.7%, despite announcing that it secured substantial contract wins across its services and construction divisions. In the utilities sector, Kier has been appointed sole provider of Bristol Water's £20m p.a. network maintenance services programme. The contract is for five years with a potential five-year extension. In the construction sector, Kier has also been awarded a place on all six lots of the Education Funding Agency regional framework for school building and upgrades, which is worth approximately £5bn over four years.

Cyan Holdings, down 2.7%, has won the 2014 Europe Frost & Sullivan award for Technology Innovation Leadership. Scientific Digital Imaging declined 3.7%. Its Synoptics Health Division introduced the new ‘ProReveal’ with advanced process validation analytics software for detecting & analysing the amount of residual proteins on surgical instruments post-decontamination.

CSR, down 3.9%, has signed the distribution agreement with Future Electronics. Blinkx, down 4.5%, has launched a new consumer product, a downloadable Windows application, Skyrocket Player.

UK markets finished lower in the week, as domestic data and corporate results disappointed investors. The FTSE 100 index fell 1.7% to 6,567.4 and the FTSE techMARK 100 Index lost 1.6% to 3,175.3. The FTSE AIM 100 Index shed 1.7% to 3,205.

Conversely, US markets inched higher at the end of the week, on the back of reduced geopolitical tensions in Ukraine as well as encouraging financial results from US companies. The DJIA index added 0.4% to 16,553.9, while the NASDAQ index rose 0.4% to 4,370.9.


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