Johnson Matthey, up 10.5%, announced that it anticipates the group’s results in the second half to be slightly ahead of those for the first six months of the year. Separately, the company announced that it plans to issue an offshore Yuan-denominated bond.
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ARM Holdings, down 1.3%, announced that fourth quarter revenues rose 21% to £137.8 million and operating profit climbed 37.7% to £47.1 million. Separately, the company announced that MStar has licensed ARM Mali Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) technology for use in smart-TV applications. DS Smith, down 2.0%, announced shareholders’ approval to acquire SCA’s packaging operations.
Bango surged 47.4%, emerging as the top gainer in the Cambridge Index, after the company announced that it is in the final stages of negotiations regarding an agreement to provide payment services to a leading platform for mobile web apps. Sareum Holdings jumped 14.4%, ahead of its interim results for the six months ended 31 December 2011.
Other prominent gainers were Cyan Holdings and Amino Technologies, which rose 14.3% and 11.2%, respectively. HiWave Technologies (formerly NXT) advanced 6.6%, after the company announced share purchases from its CEO, James Lewis and CFO, Kate Barnes. Separately, the company announced that HiWave Technologies (UK) Ltd has signed an agreement with Nissha Printing Co., Ltd to set out new terms of contractual relationship between them.
LPA Group rose 4.3% after the company announced that it has received an order worth £0.6 million from Siemens to supply its LumiMatrix lighting for Warsaw Metro. Separately, the company, in its trading update, announced that it enjoyed stronger than expected trading during the first quarter of the year and the board is very happy with the progress it is making at this point in the year.
Dialight dropped 4.1% and emerged as the top loser in the Cambridge Index. Phytopharm, down 3.0%, announced that it has appointed Dr Ian Tulloch, former Global Product Marketing Director at Novartis Pharma, as a Non-Executive Board Director with immediate effect.
Other noticeable losers were PDX (Pursuit Dynamics), Domino Printing Sciences and Scientific Digital Imaging, all down between 2.4% and 3.8%. Blinkx, down 1.8%, announced that it has partnered with Rooftop Comedy, enabling blinkx users access to over two thousand videos of some of the world’s funniest professional comedians.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index closed 2.9% higher at 5,901.1, buoyed by better than expected global economic data and reports indicating that most Eurozone members had agreed to tighter budget controls. Additionally, merger & acquisition activities in the mining sector provided a boost. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index gained 2.2% to 2,236.7, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index added 2.7% to 3,597.8.
US markets closed higher, as upbeat domestic and global manufacturing data combined with robust corporate earnings boosted market sentiment. On the economic front, US jobless rate dropped to 8.3%, the lowest since February 2009. The Dow Jones Index edged up 1.6% to 12,862.2, while the Nasdaq Index rose 3.2% to 2,905.7.
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