ARM Holdings, down 5%, announced the appointment of Dr John Liu as an independent Non-Executive Director, effective from 1 December 2014. Northland Securities has initiated coverage with an “Outperform” rating. Barclays is also positive on the shares, reiterating its “Overweight” rating with a price objective of 1,200p. Johnson Matthey, down 4.4%, has recently completed the acquisition of A123’s cathode materials manufacturing facility in Changzhou, China, strengthening its position in the battery technologies sector. Deutsche Bank reiterated its “Buy” rating with a price objective of 3,650p. DS Smith, down 6.9%, has acquired Middleton Paper’s recycling division, which currently generates around 9,000 metric tons of recovered fibre per year. Fujifilm announced that DS Smith invested in a flatbed digital printing system, which will deliver further improvements in quality for its customers, as well as ensure greater production efficiency. Canaccord Genuity initiated coverage on Greene King, down 5.6%, with a “Hold” rating with a price target of 800p. Natixis reaffirmed its “Neutral” rating on CSR, down 8.2%, with a price objective of 600p, while, Barclays reaffirmed its “Underweight” rating with price target 525p. Barclays restated its “Equal Weight” rating on Aveva Group, down 9.2%, with a target price of 1,900p.
Horizon Discovery Group, unchanged at 160p, entered into a worldwide co-exclusive distribution agreement with Haplogen Genomics GmbH, providing it with access to a new high-throughput, affordable cell line engineering service. N+1 Singer assumed coverage with a “Buy” rating and target price of 183p. Beaufort Securities reaffirmed its “Speculative Buy” rating and Panmure Gordon reaffirmed its “Buy” rating with a price target of 230p. LPA Group remained stable. The company announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, LPA Excil Electronics, has been selected to supply LED based lighting on two major rail vehicle projects, in the Middle East and Australia, with a combined value of £3.3m.
Vernalis, down 1.3%, announced the opening of its US office in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. It also announced the appointment of Dr Pascal Borderies, as SVP Medical Affairs as well as the license of worldwide rights in Vipadenant (V2006), to RedoxTherapies Inc. Oriel Securities and Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed their “Buy” ratings with respective price objectives of 60p and 56p. Barclays reaffirmed its “Overweight” rating on the shares of Domino Printing Sciences, down 3.1%, with a price target of 730p.
UK markets finished lower in the past week, after the NIESR projected that the British economy grew at a slower pace in the third quarter. IMF’s downgrade in the growth estimates worldwide for 2015 further hurt sentiments. The FTSE 100 index fell 2.9% to 6,340.0. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index declined 4.9% to 3,135.2 and the FTSE AIM 100 Index also decreased 4% to 3,054.7.
US markets closed lower in the previous week, as the IMF cut its global growth estimate for 2015, despite dovish Fed minutes indicating lower interest rates for a considerable period. The DJIA index lost 2.7% to 16,544.1, while the NASDAQ index dropped 4.5% to 4,276.2