Morgan Stanley reaffirmed its “Overweight” rating on ARM Holdings, up 8.0%, with a target price of 1180.0p. Liberum Capital reduced its target price on the stock to 650.0p from 700.0p and maintained its “Sell” rating.Jefferies Group revised its target price on Johnson Matthey, up 1.3%, to 3615.0p from 4320.0p and maintained its “Buy” rating.
DS Smith, up 1.9%, announced that it was mulling a construction of specially designed facility near its current Fordham Road site in order to open a new marketing & training centre that would enable creation of around 8 new jobs. The company further added that it has already submitted an application to East Cambridgeshire District Council that includes the design and the access statement drawn by GSS Architecture. Berenberg Bank raised its price target on the stock to 375.0p from 350.0p and maintained its “Hold” rating.
Kier Group, up 4.3%, announced that it has been retained as the sole contractor to Scape Group, wherein it would deliver construction and maintenance work to Scape worth up to £1.5b for a period of next four years. JP Morgan resumes its “Overweight” rating on the stock with a target price of 1638.0p.
Xaar, up 11.0%, in its interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2015, announced that revenues dropped 26% to £47.8m from £60.4m in the previous year. Profit before tax slumped to £3.7m against a profit of £15.3m last year. The company’s board declared an interim dividend of 3.15p per share (2014: 3.0p per share) which will be paid on 9 October 2015. The board expects 2015 full year revenues to be in the range of £92.0-95.0m while it anticipates stability during the period and intends to return into growth phase in 2016. Investec reaffirmed its “Add” rating on the stock. Liberum Capital reaffirmed its “Buy” rating on Sepura, up 1.7%, with a target price of 202.0p.
Blinkx, down 10.4%, in its trading and business update for half year ended 30 September 2015, announced that the first quarter performance of FY16 was in line with its expectations mainly due to good revenue growth of its Core product lines like Mobile, Video and Programmatic that offset the underperformance of its Non-Core product line. However, the second quarter performance was below the expected mark. The company expects first half revenues between $85.0m to $95.0m and the cash balance to stay around $82.0m to $85.0m range. The company intends to cut operational costs through various cost reduction measures which will make an annual savings of $10.0m. In the second half of 2016, the company will use $6.0m from the cash balance for deferred acquisition consideration and a $2.0m investment to boost the growth of Core products. Numis Securities reissued its “Add” rating on the stock.
UK markets ended higher last week, as UK reported mostly better than expected economic data. The FTSE 100 index rose 1.0% to 6,247.9, while the FTSE AIM 100 Index advanced 1.4% to finish at 3,363.0. Also, the FTSE techMARK 100 Index climbed 3.4% to settle at 3,800.7.
US markets closed higher in the previous week, after upbeat consumer confidence and durable goods data along with a better-than-expected revised GDP data in the US boosted investor confidence. The DJIA index advanced 1.1% to 16,643.0, while the NASDAQ Index edged 2.6% higher to finish at 4,828.3.
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