It was helped by gains in index heavyweights such as Johnson Matthey and Aveva Group, both of whom benefitted from positive broker reviews.
Citigroup reiterated its “Buy” recommendation on Johnson Matthey, up 1.3%, and set a target price of 3000p. Panmure Gordon recommended Aveva Group, up 3.2%, as a “Hold”, whilst retaining its target price at 1,599p. However, shares of ARM Holdings fell 0.9%, despite winning a multi-year contract from US company Synopsys Inc.
Phytopharm surged 37.3% and emerged as the top gainer in the Cambridge Index for the second straight week, as the market further evaluated the company’s prospects. ANT, up 10.9%, announced the appointment of George Ralph as its new Finance Director, with effect from 10 September 2012.
Dialight, up 7.9%, announced that it has secured an order worth $1m to supply 2,000 LED lighting fixtures for a new underground conveyor system for an Indonesian mining group. The company also announced the establishment of Dialight Asia Pte Limited, a joint venture with Singapore based Lumina Holdings Systems Ltd, to promote and sell Dialight’s industrial white lighting products in South East Asia. Abcam gained 7.2%, ahead of its preliminary results for the year ended 30 June 2012, scheduled to be released on 6 September. Brady, up 4.3%, confirmed that trading was in line with expectations and added that it would announce its latest results on 17 September.
Amongst the fallers, Tristel, down 5.6%, indicated that Non-Executive Director, Peter Stephens, sold 50,000 ordinary shares at a price of 35p per share on 24 August 2012. Numis downgraded Greene King, down 2.5%, to “Hold”, and assigned a target price of 615p, while Deutsche Bank recommended the stock as a “Buy”. Kier Group slid 1.0%, despite being selected by the Health Campus Partnership as the preferred bidder for a Watford Health Campus project worth £240m.
In the UK, the FTSE 100 index closed 1.1% lower, at 5,711.5, after the British Chambers of Commerce and the Confederation of British Industry downgraded their current year growth forecasts for the UK economy. Disappointing domestic consumer credit and confidence data also had a negative effect on market sentiment. The FTSE techMARK 100 Index added 0.1% to 2,374.1, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index ended flat at 3,068.4.
US markets ended lower last week, as investors preferred to stay on the sidelines ahead of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech at an annual symposium in Jackson Hole on Friday. Dismal US consumer confidence data also weighed on market sentiment. Markets recovered somewhat on Friday, reducing losses recorded earlier in the week, after Mr Bernanke stated that the Federal Reserve was willing to use more quantitative easing, as may be needed. The Dow Jones Index dropped 0.5% to 13,090.8, while the Nasdaq Index fell 0.1% to 3,067.0.
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