HSBC reaffirmed its “Overweight” rating on the shares of ARM Holdings, down 1.4%, with a price target of 1,120.0p. Canaccord Genuity reaffirmed its “Buy” rating with a target price of $45.59, down from its previous target price of $60.00.
Numis Securities upgraded its rating on the shares of Johnson Matthey, down 3.5%, to an “Add” with a price target of 3,642.0p, up from its previous price target of 3,470.0p. DS Smith, down 5.0%, revealed plans to make 54 redundancies across two plants in the UK as it installs a corrugator machine as part of a £100m investment programme, which will be fully operational by the end of the year.
Tristel, up 16.7%, expects a pre-tax profit, before share-based payments, for the year ending 30 June 2014 to be not less than £1.75m, compared to adjusted pre-tax profit of £0.48m last year. On the outlook front, Tristel commented that the trend of strong momentum in its underlying business, which it witnessed in March and April, is expected to continue through to its June year end and beyond.
Sepura, up 4.7%, posted a pre-tax profit of €14.2m for the recently completed financial year, up from €7.9m the year ago, as revenue rose to €116.6m from €104.8m, including a €0.7m contribution from its acquisition ‘Portalify’. It raised its full-year dividend to 2.0p from 1.7p in the previous year. It now expects revenue growth of 10% a year in FY15 and FY16, and adjusted EPS growth of 15% in FY15 and 25% in FY16. Westhouse Securities reaffirmed its “Buy” rating with a price target of 160.0p. Investec raised its price objective from 160.0p to 200.0p with a “Buy” rating.
Sareum Holdings, down 8.6%, raised £0.6m through a new placing and equity swap with YA Global Master SPV Ltd and added that the money would be utilised for working capital and to fund its main research programmes. Berenberg Bank reaffirmed its “Buy” rating on the shares of Aveva Group, down 5.3%, with a price target of 2,500.0p.
Following a review of its corporate broking arrangements, Xaar, down 4.5%, appointed Jefferies International Limited as its corporate broker to act alongside N+1 Singer.
Horizon Discovery Group, down 3.9%, entered into a non-exclusive license agreement with the Broad Institute to access intellectual property related to the CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing system. It also announced the appointment of Dr. Susan Galbraith, Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology Innovative Medicines at AstraZeneca, and Susan Searle, co-founder and ex-CEO of Imperial Innovations Group, as Non-Executive Directors on the Company's Board with immediate effect. Panmure Gordon reaffirmed its “Buy” rating with a price objective of 220.0p.
Frontier Developments, down 0.9%, has mixed up a special new trailer for its ‘Elite: Dangerous’ space game to show off at E3.
Markets in the UK ended in red in the prior week, after BoE Governor, Mark Carney indicated that interest rates in the UK could rise sooner than expected. In the UK, the FTSE 100 index fell 1.2% to 6,777.9. Additionally, the FTSE techMARK 100 Index lost 1.3% to 3,238.9 and the FTSE AIM 100 Index declined 3.1% to 3,409.0.
US markets finished lower during the week, as domestic data revealed disappointing figures for initial jobless claims and retail sales. The DJIA index shed 0.9% to 16,775.8, while the NASDAQ index inched 0.2% lower, at 4,310.7.
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