Johnson Matthey, up 3.9%, had its “Hold” rating reiterated by Numis Securities. Numis also held its “Buy” rating on DS Smith, up 9.4%, and set the target price at 301.0p. AVEVA Group, up 3.0%, was assigned a “Buy” rating from Numis, while Morgan Stanley reiterated the stock as “Overweight”.
Gaming Realms (formerly PDX Plc) increased 21.5% during the week and emerged as the top gainer in the Cambridge Index. It received shareholders’ approval for the acquisition of three online social gaming and gambling businesses: viz. Gaming Realms Limited, BeJig Limited and AlchemyBet Limited. The newly named company also passed a resolution to raise about £3.4m through a share placing program. Vernalis, up 8.4%, announced a pre-tax profit of £2.6m and posted a 29.0% growth in its half-year revenue to £7.6m.
Shares of Abcam rose 1.3% during the week. The company announced that it would issue its preliminary results for the year ended 30 June 2013 on 10 September 2013. Dialight, up 3.0%, won a contract worth about $1.0 million from a major operator in North America for its new ‘Cellphone Tower Remote Monitoring and Lighting system’. Shares of Quixant were up 2.8%. In its trading update, the company stated that its performance for the full-year ending 31 December 2013 is in line with the market expectations, while also revealing that it expected higher revenues in the second-half of the financial year. Ubisense Group, up 4.2%, announced a new order win from a large US agricultural manufacturer for its ‘Ubisense Smart Factory System’. Meanwhile Frontier Developments, which only listed on 15 July 2013, fell 13.5%.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index rose 1.4% during the week, to 6,647.9, as manufacturing PMI readings from UK, China, US and Eurozone boosted optimism that global economies are recovering. Meanwhile, the ECB and BoE maintained their accommodative policies in their respective policy meetings, to provide continued support to their economies. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index climbed 2.8% to 2,947.1, and the FTSE AIM 100 Index rose 1.0%, to 3,349.6.
US markets advanced during the week, on some better-than-expected US corporate earnings reports and rising optimism that the Federal Reserve might continue with its stimulus measures to support growth. Meanwhile, the US GDP expanded at a better-than-expected 1.7% annual pace in the second quarter, compared to the first-quarter's downwardly revised 1.1% expansion pace. The DJIA index rose 0.6%, to 15,658.4, while the NASDAQ index advanced 2.1%, to close at 3,689.6.